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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
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http://www.archive.org/details/roundaboutnorthp01gord 




"DONE UP' 



Frontispiece 



ROUND ABOUT 
THE NORTH POLE 



BY Wf J/'GORDON 



WITH WOODCUTS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 
BY EDWARD WHYMPER 



NEW YORK 

E, P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 

31 West Twenty-third Street 
1907 



.GrtoLp 

Hot a* 



°- C p Mk Library 
MAY 1 1938 



Printed in Great Britain 



138913 

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PREFACE 

AMONG the many books about the Polar regions 
±~\. there is none quite like this, dealing with the 
gradual progress of exploration towards the north 
along the different areas of advance within the Arctic 
Circle. 

The subject is always interesting, for few regions 
have been the scene of more persistent effort and 
exciting adventure and unexpected gains from the 
unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the 
endeavour to find the northern passages to the east and 
west led to the beginning of our foreign trade. 

It is often asked, " What is the use of further Arctic 
discovery ? " No one knows. Nor did any one know 
the use of most discoveries before they were made. 

When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in 
search of cryolite for aluminium. When Cabral sailed 
to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the incandescent 
gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round 
the magnetic needle he was not bent on founding 
electrical engineering. And when Linnagus noticed 
the sleep of plants he had no intention of providing 
a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though 



vi PREFACE 

the sunshine is continuous during the summer, the 
plants within the Circle sleep as in the night time, 
their sleeping leaves telling the traveller that midnight 
is at hand. 

Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole, 
and thither they will go. What they will find when 
they get there may not promise to be much, but what 
they have found round about it has been enough to 
influence considerably the history of the world. 

W. J. G. 

July, 1907. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 



PAGE 



SPITSBERGEN 1 

CHAPTER II 

SPITSBERGEN (continued) 24 

CHAPTER III 
NOVAYA ZEMLYA 49 

CHAPTER IV 
FRANZ JOSEF LAND 64 

CHAPTER V 
CAPE CHELYUSKIN 84 

CHAPTER VI 
THE LENA DELTA . . 106 

CHAPTER VII 

BERING STRAIT 127 

CHAPTER VIII 
THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 146 

CHAPTER IX 
THE PARRY ISLANDS . . . . . . .170 

CHAPTER X 
BOOTHIA . 190 






viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XI PAGE 

BAFFIN BAY 215 

CHAPTER XII 
SMITH SOUND 235 

CHAPTER XIII 
GREENLAND 259 

INDEX 287 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

( ' Done up " . . . . . Frontispiece 

From Nansen's First Crossing of Greenland (Longmans) 

TO FACE PAGE 

The Summit of Oraefa . . . ... 2 

From a photograph 

Columbus . . . . ... 4 

From the portrait at Versailles 

Samoyeds and their Dwellings . . . 10 

From Hartwig's Polar World (Longmans) 

Franz Josef Fiord . . . ... 14 

From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer 

Whalers among Icebergs . . . ... 30 

From Hartwig's Polar World (Longmans) 

Sir John Franklin . . . ... 34 

From Le Tour du Monde, i860 (Hachette) 

Track of H.M.S. "Dorothea" and "Trent" . 36 

From A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, performed in His Majesty's Ships 
" Dorothea" and " Trent," under the command of Capt. David Buchan, R.N., 1818, 
by Capt. F. W. Beechey, r.n., f.r.s. (Richard Bentley, 1843.) 

Parry Camped on the Ice . . ... 40 

From Captain Parry's Narrative, 1828 (Murray) 

Parry's Boats among the Hummocks . . 42 

From Captain Parry's Narrative, 1828 (Murray) 

How our Ship stuck fast in the Ice . . 50 

From A True Description, byGerrit de Veer (Hakluyt Society, 1853) 

HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES . . 56 

From A True Description, by Gerrit de Veer (Hakluyt Society, 1853) 

Adolf Erik Nordenskiold . . . 90 

From a photograph 

Fridtjof Nansen . . . "*. 96 

With autograph. From a photograph supplied by himself 

Reindeer . . . . ... 112 

By permission. From Short Stalks, by Edward Buxton (Stanford) 

Samoyed Man . . . . ... 114 

From Seebohm's Siberia in Asia (Murray) 



x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

TO FACE PAGH 

Ostiak Man . . . . ... 116 

From Seebohm's Siberia in Asia (Murray) 

The Face of the Fur Seal . . ... 130 

From The Seal Islands of Alaska, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881) 

The Aleutian Islands . . . ... 132 

From Hartwig's Polar World (Longmans). From an original Sketch by Frederick 
Whymper 

Driving the Fur Seal . . . ... 134 

From The Seal Islands of Alaska, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881) 

Fur Seals at Sea . . . ... 136 

From Tlie Seal Islands of Alaska, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881) 

The Parka of the Alaskan Innuits . . . 138 

From Whymper's Alaska (Sampson Low) 

The Frozen Yukon . . . . 140 

From Whymper's A laska (Sampson Low) 

Ascending the Yukon . . . ... 142 

From Whymper's Alaska (Sampson Low) 

Moose-hunting on the Yukon . . . . 144 

From Whymper's Alaska (Sampson Low) 

Mahlemut Man . . . . ... 146 

From Whymper's Alaska (Sampson Low) 

Winter Travelling on the Great Slave Lake . . .150 

From Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22 (Murray, 1823) 

Crossing Point Lake . . . . 152 

From Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22 (Murray, 1823) 

Kutchin Indians . . . ... 154 

From Hartwig's Polar World (Longmans). From an original sketch by Frederick 
Whymper 

Preparing an Encampment on the Barren Grounds . . .156 

From Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22 (Murray, 1823) 

Sir John Richardson . . . . 158 

With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper 

Back's Journey down the Great Fish River . . . 160 

From Back's Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of the Great Fish River 
in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835 (Murray, 1836) 

Sir William Edward Parry , . . . 170 

With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper 

Sir John Barrow . . . ... 178 

With autograph 

H.M.S. "Hecla" and " Griper" in Winter Harbour . . 180 

From A Voyage for tlie Discovery of a North-west Passage, 
by Capt. Parry (Murray, 1821) 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

TO FACE PAGE 

Parry's Discoveries on his First Voyage . ... 182 

From A Voyage /or the Discovery of a North-west Passage, by Captain Parry 
(Murray, 1821) 

An Igloolik Eskimo carrying his Kayak . ... 190 

From Parry's Second Voyage (Murray, 1824) 

Parry's farthest on his Third Voyage . . . . 192 

From Parry's Third Voyage (Murray, 1826) 

The " Victory " . . . . ... 194 

From Sir J. Ross's Arctic Expedition, 1829-33 (Webster, 1835) 

North Hendon . . . . ... 196 

From Sir J. Ross's Arctic Expedition, 1829-33 (Webster, 1835) 

Eskimo listening at a Seal-hole . . ... 198 

From Parry's Second Voyage (Murray, 1824) 

H.M.S. "Terror" lifted by Ice . . ... 202 

From Hartwig's Polar World (Longmans) 

Fractured Stern-post of H.M.S. " Terror'' . . . 204 

From Capt. Back's Narrative, 1838 (Murray) 

The " Fox " escaping from the pack . ... 208 

From M'Clintock's Voyage of the " Fox " 

The "Fox" on a rock . . . ... 210 

From M'Clintock's Voyage of the "Fox" 

Discovery of the Cairn . . . ... 212 

From M'Clintock's Voyage of the " Fox " 

Sir Martin Frobisher . . . . 216 

From The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher (Hakluyt Society, 1867) 

Eskimo awaiting a Seal . . . ... 222 

From Hartwig's Polar World (Longmans) 

A Greenlander in his Kayak . . ... 224 

From Le Tour du Monde, 1868 (Hachette) 

Baffin Bay in 1819 . . . ... 232 

From A Voyage of Discovery, by Capt. John Ross (Longmans, 1819) 

Dr. E. K. Kane . . . ... 234 

From the Frontispiece to Kane's Arctic Explorations, 1856 

Kalutunah . . . . ... 236 

From Le Tour du Monde, 1868 (Hachette) 

The East Coast of Smith Sound . . ... 238 

From Hayes' Open Polar Sea (Sampson Low) 

Dr. I. I. Hayes . . . . ... 240 

By permission, from Hayes' Open Polar Sea 



Xll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Shores of Kennedy Channel . 

From Hayes' Open Polar Sea 

Tyndall Glacier .... 

From Hayes' Open Polar Sea 

A Seal in Danger . . . 

From Parry's Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage 
(Murray, 1S24) 



TO FACE PAGE 

. 242 



244 
246 



248 



Sir George Nares . .... 

From a photograph 

Sledges used by Sir Leopold M'Clintock and Sir George Nares . 254 

(In the collection of Edward Whymper) 

Bishop Paul Egede . . . ... 258 

From the Frontispiece to Efterretninger om Gronland (Copenhagen) 

Greenlanders . . . . ... 260 

From Hartwig's Polar World (Longmans) 

On level ground . . . ... 262 

Nansen's First Crossing of Greenland (Longmans) 

The Allan Liner " Sardinian " among Icebergs . . . 264 

From a photograph 

The "Germania'' in the Ice . . ... 266 

From Le Tour du Monde, 1874 (Hachette) 

The Region round Mount Petermann 

From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer 

The Last Days of the " Hansa " 

From Le Tour du Monde, 1874 (Hachette) 

Robert E. Peary . . . ... 280 

With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper 

From Nearest the Pole, by Commander Peary. By permission of Hutchinson and Co. 



268 



. 270 



SECTIONAL MAPS 



1. Spitsbergen 

2. Cape Chelyuskin 

3. The Lena Delta 

4. Bering Strait 

5. The Parry Islands 

6. Greenland 



12 
84 
106 
128 
174 
272 



ROUND ABOUT 
THE NORTH POLE 



CHAPTER I 
SPITSBERGEN 

Iceland — Greenland — America — Sebastian Cabot — Robert Thorne — The 
North-east Passage — Willoughby — Chancellor — Borough — The North 
Cape rounded — The White Sea reached — The First Arctic Search Ex- 
pedition — Pet and Jackimn — Brunei — Cornells Nai — Barents reaches 
77° 20' — Second voyage of Nai — The Samoyeds — Rijp, Jacob Van 
Heeraskerck and Barents — Bear Island discovered — Spitsbergen dis- 
covered — The Dutch reach 79° 49' — Stephen Bennet — Welden — Jonas 
Poole — Henry Hudson reaches 80° 23' — Poole starts the British whaling 
trade — Baffin's voyages to Spitsbergen — Pellham winters at Green 
Harbour. 

THE story of the lands within the Arctic Circle is 
a record of the brave deeds of healthy men. 
This would seem to be true were we to take the story, 
if we could, back to the days when man followed the 
retreat of the glaciers, as he may in turn have to retreat 
before them, such a condition of things being not beyond 
the range of probability though it may be remote. For 
the boundaries of the frozen north are not dependent on 
a line of latitude, and have never been the same from 
period to period, or even from year to year. In some 
cases they have changed considerably within the 



2 SPITSBERGEN 

Christian era, and it is evident that the ice is not 
eternal. The fossils declare that the climate round 
the North Pole has varied greatly, and must in 
comparatively recent ages have been comfortably 
warm, so genial indeed that some people would have 
us believe that men came from there in their last dis- 
tribution. Not, however, with such migrants from 
the far north do we concern ourselves, but with those 
who have endeavoured to get there in historical times 
by different lines of approach, as we follow the circle 
round from east to west and note the record of each 
section by itself. 

Who was the first to sail to the northern seas we 
know not. Suffice it for us that in 875 Ingolf the 
jarl, from Norway, refusing to live under the sway of 
Harold Haarfager, sighted Mount Oraefa. As he 
neared the coast, overboard went the carved wood ; 
and where the wood drifted ashore he founded Reik- 
javik. But he was not the first in Iceland, for the 
Irish monastery had been there for years when he 
arrived, though the monks retired to their old country 
when they found the Norsemen had come to stay. 

Then the Icelander Gunnbiorn, driven westward in 
a gale, sighted the strange land he called White Shirt 
from its snowfields, which Eric the Red, following a 
long time afterwards, more happily renamed. " What 
shall we call the land ? " he was asked. "Call it Green 
Land," replied Eric. " But it is not always green ! " 
" It matters not : give it a good name and people will 
come to it ! " 

Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986 
Bjarni sighted what we now call America, and in 1000 




^\'a^" ._/-.. ..,-'-.* -. J 






From a photo 



THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA 



To face page 2 



GREENLAND COLONISED 3 

came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on his way 
down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the 
names to Helluland, Markland, Vinland — in short, 
the Viking discovery of the New World. 

Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent, 
was duly colonised, its two chief settlements being one 
just round Cape Farewell, the other further north on 
the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of 
islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would 
appear to have had a milder climate than it has 
now. The colonies throve, their population becoming 
numerous enough to require a series of seventeen 
bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend 
their spiritual welfare. But the Eskimos, in their 
migration from Asia across the Arctic islands, arrived 
in the country before the middle of the fourteenth 
century and gradually drove the Norsemen down- 
wards, the northern colony coming to an end in 1342 
owing to the enemy attacking during a visitation of 
the Black Death. 

Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle 
in its northernmost point, and extends but half as far 
south of it as Greenland, increased in prosperity as a 
sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more ver- 
nacular literature than any country in Europe, in which, 
as might be expected, the story of Greenland and the 
American colonies was kept so well to the fore that 
it became as familiar among the people as a nursery 
tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went 
Columbus ; and thence it was he returned to seek a 
patron for his western voyage across the Atlantic. 

The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great 



4 SPITSBERGEN 

stimulus to maritime discovery, and many were the 
projects for searching the seas for a new route to the 
east. Of these the most important was that sub- 
mitted to Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol. 
Much has been written, on slender and confusing 
evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and 
to his son, the more famous Sebastian ; and, to be brief, 
we cannot do better than follow Anderson, who, in his 
Origin of Commerce, ingeniously evades the difficulty 
by speaking, commercially, of " Cabot and Sons." 
The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship 
Matthew to the westward and discovered and took 
possession of Labrador and the islands and peninsulas in 
the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the district being at first 
known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards 
restricted to the largest island. And they had their 
reward, as shown in the Privy Purse accounts of 
Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th August, 1497, 
appears — " To hym that found the new isle, £10." 
Surely not an excessive honorarium for the finding of 
a continent. 

In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of 
Iceland, in which some attempt seems to have been 
made to colonise the newly discovered territories, re- 
sulted in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to 
Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds, 
the white bears, and the Eskimos who are not known 
to have ever crossed into the island of Newfoundland. 
This was not the only English vessel to appear in 
these parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy 
Purse accounts record a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley 
and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the New Isle, 




COLUMBUS 



To face page 4 



THE FIRST NORTH-EAST VOYAGE 5 

adding that Launcelot had already received £20 " as 
preste " for his ship going there. 

It is evident that the fisheries were found to be 
worth working, for no less than fifty Spanish, French, 
and Portuguese ships were engaged in them in 1517, 
the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to 
Hudson Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of 
Bristol, wrote to the King, mentioning this voyage and 
suggesting three sea routes to Cathay — by the north- 
west, as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over 
the Pole, and by the north-east — and, in 1547, when 
Sebastian returned to England for good, after his long 
service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor of 
the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this 
Cathay question, which had frequently been raised, 
and fitted out, as a commencement, an expedition to 
the north-east. 

The ships were built at Bristol specially for the 
purpose, and they were sheathed with lead, the first 
so treated in this country. This sheathing of ships was 
not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific 
seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the 
voyage many excellent new things are enjoined, in- 
cluding the keeping of a log and journal, which date 
from this expedition. There were three vessels, the 
Bona Esperanza, of one hundred and twenty tons, 
Captain Sir Hugh Willoughby ; the Edward Bona- 
ve?iture, one hundred and sixty tons, Captain Bichard 
Chancellor ; and the Bona Conftdentia, ninety tons, 
Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master, 
was the best navigator of the fleet, whose monu- 
mental brass in Chatham Church is noteworthy for its 



6 SPITSBERGEN 

epitaph : " Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven 
Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in 
ye yere of our Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam 
in Devonshire ye xxv th of Septemb. 1525. He in his 
life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea 
passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1558. At his 
setting foorth of England he was accompanied with 
two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie being Admirell of 
the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two 
shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same 
winter. After his discouerie of Roosia, and ye 
Coastes thereto adioyninge — to wit, Lappia, Nova 
Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc. : he fre- 
quented ye trade to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot 
for ye voyage, until he was chosen of one of ye foure 
principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's Ma ties 
royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of 
sundrie sea services till time of his death." 

The ships left in May, but did not remain long 
together. On the 2nd of August Willoughby and 
Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off 
the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might 
have led anywhere, were frozen in on the coast of 
Lapland, where they wintered and died, as did all the 
men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the 
rendezvous in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded 
the North Cape — so named by Borough— and found 
his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in 
winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made 
a sledge journey to the Czar at Moscow, which led 
to the formation of the Muscovy Company and the 
beginning of England's Russian trade ; and through 



THE FIRST ARCTIC SEARCH EXPEDITION 7 

his meeting there with the Persian Ambassador came 
about the mission, of Anthony Jenkinson to the Shah, 
which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never was 
a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign 
commerce of this country, and from it dates the rise 
of our mercantile marine. 

In 1556 Borough, in the Searckthrift, persevered 
further east, and, passing between Novaya Zemlya and 
Waigatz Island, through the strait that bears his name 
spelt differently, entered the Kara Sea. Next year in 
the same ship he was given the command of the first 
Arctic Search Expedition, its object being to discover 
what had become of Willoughby. Of one ship, the 
Confidentia, he obtained news in an interview with a 
man who had bought her sails, but the full story of 
the disastrous end of the voyage remained a mystery 
until the Russians found the ships and bodies and 
Willoughby 's journal, and took the ships round to the 
Dwina. Then for the first time did people realise 
what it meant to battle with an Arctic winter without 
preparation, and many were those who withdrew their 
interest in the frozen north, preferring tropical dangers 
to the possibility of such accumulating miseries as the 
journal records in due order in its matter-of-fact way, 
its last entry being the terribly suggestive — " Unknowen 
and most wonderful wild beasts assembling in fearful 
numbers about the ships." 

With Stephen Borough in the Chancellor voyage 
was Arthur Pet — or Pett, a name not unknown in the 
navy — who, after two centuries, has become notable 
again through a strange discovery. In search of the 
much-desired passage by the north-east he sailed from 



8 SPITSBERGEN 

Harwich on the 31st of May, 1580, in the George, of 
forty tons, accompanied by Charles Jackman, in the 
William, of twenty tons. His orders were to avoid 
the open sea and keep the coast in sight all the way 
out on the starboard side, and William Borough — 
Stephen's brother, afterwards Comptroller of the Navy 
— gave him certain instructions and notes. 

Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed 
badly, to wait for him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead 
and endeavoured to pass through Burrough Strait, but 
meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage, 
and working round Waigatz to the south, entered the 
Kara Sea through Yugor Strait, or as it used to be 
called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting eastward with 
the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected, 
much hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined 
by the little William he made for the northward, seek- 
ing a way to the east, but the " more and thicker was 
the ice so that they could go no further," and, after 
talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and 
Jackman reluctantly decided to return to Waigatz 
and there decide on what should be done. 

Their way back was difficult. They became shut in 
so that " they could not stir, labouring only to defend 
the ice as it came upon them." For one day they 
were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August, 
they were encumbered again, though they got out of 
the trouble by sailing between the ice and the shore, 
which was a new experience. In this way they just 
scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open 
sea to Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on 
the sands to the south of that island. On the 22nd of 



THE FIRST DUTCH VOYAGE 9 

August, two days afterwards, the William parted from 
the George in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship 
home and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day. 

The Dutch had for some time been trying to out- 
strip the English on this route to the far east. In 
1565 they had settled at Kola, and about thirteen 
years afterwards had established the factory at the 
mouth of the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmo- 
gory, generally known as Archangel. In 1584 Olivier 
Brunei, their energetic emissary in Hussia, sailed on 
the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried 
in vain to pass through Pet Strait, and the ship, with 
a valuable cargo of furs and mica, was wrecked on its 
homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora. 

Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the 
Texel the expedition of Cornelis Nai, in which the 
Mercury, of Amsterdam, was commanded by Willem 
Barents. Barents — really Barentszoon, the son of 
Bernard — sighted Novaya Zemlya, with which his name 
was to be thenceforth associated, on the 4th of July, 
and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with their 
myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later. 
Thence reaching 77° 20', and thus improving on John 
Davis's record for the highest north, he struggled 
through the ice to the Orange Islands and back, some 
twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one 
times and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geo- 
graphical miles. Failing to proceed further, he came 
south, and off Pet Strait — named by the Dutchmen 
Nassau Strait — fell in with the other two ships returning 
from their unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea. 

Next year a fleet of seven vessels under Nai left the 



10 SPITSBERGEN 

Mars Diep on another endeavour to get through to 
China. One of the two chief commissioners on board 
was the famous Van Linschoten, who had been on the 
previous voyage, and the chief pilot was Barents, who 
was in the Winthont (Greyhound) with Jacob van 
Heemskerck as supercargo. Arriving at Pet Strait 
they found it so blocked with ice that no passage was 
possible, and Barents, in search of information, went 
ashore on the mainland south of the strait and made 
friends — in a way — with the Samoyeds, whose appear- 
ance, as described by Gerrit de Veer, was " like that of 
wild men," dressed as they were in deerskins from head 
to foot, those of importance wearing caps of coloured 
cloth lined with fur ; for the most part short of stature, 
with broad flat faces, small eyes, and bow legs ; their 
hair worn long, plaited, and hanging down their backs. 
They were evidently suspicious of the Dutchmen, 
who did their best to be friendly. The chief had 
placed sentinels all round to see what the new-comers 
were about and note everything that was bought and 
sold. One of the sentinels was offered a biscuit, which 
" he with great thanks took and ate, and while he ate 
it he still looked diligently about him on all sides, 
watching what was done." Their reindeer sledges were 
kept ready — " that run so swiftly with one or two 
men in them that our horses were not able to follow 
them." They were unacquainted with firearms, and, 
when a musket was fired to impress them, "ran and 
leapt like madmen," but calmed down as soon as they 
saw there was no malicious intention, to wonder much 
more, however, when the man with the gun aimed at a 
flat stone he placed as a mark, and, fortunately, hit and 




SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS 



Xqijice page 10 



THE DUTCHMEN AND THE SAMOYEDS 11 
broke it. The meeting ended satisfactorily; "after that 
we took our leaves one of the other with great friend- 
ship on both sides, and when we were in our pinnace 
we all put off our hats and bowed to them, sounding 
our trumpet ; they in their manner saluting us also, 
and then went to their sledges again." 

Barents was by no means convinced that the strait 
was impassable, and held out against the opinion of 
the others for some days, but with the firm ice 
stretching round in all directions he had to give in, 
and on the 15th of September the fleet began the 
voyage home. Much had been expected, and the re- 
sult was so conspicuous a failure that the States 
General abandoned any further attempt at a north- 
east passage on their own account, but decided to 
offer a reward to any private expedition that proved 
successful. Whereupon the authorities and merchants 
of Amsterdam fitted out two vessels for a third 
voyage, giving the command of one to Jan Corne- 
liszoon Rijp, and that of the other to Jacob van 
Heemskerck, with Barents as chief pilot. 

The ships left the Dutch coast on the 18th of May. 
Four days afterwards they were off the Shetlands, 
going north-east. On the 9th of June they discovered 
an island, on which they landed. Here they saw a 
prodigious white bear, which they went after in a boat, 
intending to slip a noose over her neck, but when they 
were near her she looked so strong that their courage 
failed, and they returned to the ships to fetch more 
men, and what seems to have been quite an armoury 
of " muskets, harquebusses, halberds and hatchets." 
Accompanied by another boat they attacked this 



12 SPITSBERGEN 

formidable beast for over two hours, one of them 
getting an axe into her back, with which she swam 
away until she was caught and had her head split open 
by another blow from an axe. From this remarkable 
bear, whose skin, we are told, was twelve feet long, 
the island was named Bear Island. 

Continuing northwards they sighted, on the 19th of 
June, Spitsbergen, which they supposed to be Green- 
land — an error that led to much confusion- — and on 
the 21st of June they landed and had another trying 
time with a bear, whose skin proved to be thirteen 
feet long. On one island of the cluster they found 
the eggs of the barnacle goose, Bernicla leucopsis, 
whose nesting ground was up to then unknown, and 
on others they saw reindeer, for in this land "there 
groweth leaves and grass." Returning to Bear Island 
after attaining 79° 49', some hundred and seventy 
miles higher north than in 1594, Rijp departed for the 
north again, and, failing to get beyond Bird Cape, 
went home to Holland by way of Kola ; and to Kola 
he came back the year afterwards. 

In 1603, following the Dutch, came Stephen Bennet 
to call Bear Island Cherie Island, after his patron, and 
find the walruses in thousands and the birds in millions. 
A rocky tableland of mountain limestone and car- 
boniferous sandstone, with the usual fossils in unusual 
numbers and a few coal seams in between ; the ravines 
faced and floored with fragments of every dimension 
and shape, split off by the frost and weathered by 
wind and rain : a grey, grassless, monotonous country, 
except along the coast, where the guano from the vast 
numbers of seabirds has coated the crannies and ledges 



SPITSBERGEN 




200 J 00 400 500 



To face page 12 



BEAR ISLAND 13 

of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred 
feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which 
the scurvy-grass and a few other plants thrive amaz- 
ingly, though the island's complete flora contains but 
forty species — such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone 
to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession 
in 1609 for the Muscovy Company. 

Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream, 
the range of temperature is of the widest. Often 
the island is unapproachable owing to the ice, some- 
times it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608, 
when, in June, "the pitch did run down the ship's 
sides, and that side of the masts that was to the sun- 
ward was so hot that the tar did fry out of it as 
though it had boiled." That was a great year for 
Welden, for he killed a thousand walruses in less than 
seven hours and took a young one home with him, 
"where the king and many honourable personages 
beheld it with admiration, the like whereof had never 
before been seen alive in England." 

Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now 
little heard of, most of the surviving interest in such 
matters being concentrated on Henry Hudson, who 
was in the same service at the same time. Hudson 
was, perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson, 
one of the founders of the Muscovy Company, but 
nothing is really known of him beyond his being a 
captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of 
April, 1607, took the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's, 
in Bishopsgate Street, with his son and crew " and the 
rest df the parishioners." That he was a parishioner 
may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew 



14 SPITSBERGEN 

were so is unlikely. Anyhow, they were outward 
bound for Japan and China by way of the North Pole, 
and sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May. 

Where he went is not clear in detail, as his latitudes 
are seldom correct and his longitudes are not recorded. 
He sighted Greenland north of Iceland, and, shouldered 
off by the ice barrier, left it somewhere about Franz 
Josef Fjord, working easterly by the edge of the 
ice to Spitsbergen. Here he sailed round Prince 
Charles's Foreland and went north, passing Hakluyt 
Headland, which he named, reaching on the 13th of 
July, 80° 23', " by observation." He saw many whales, 
but found his way blocked by ice ; and after many 
attempts, assuring himself that there was no passage 
hereabouts to the north, sailed southwards for Bear 
Island. On leaving this he seems to have gone west, 
possibly to the coast of Greenland again, for on his 
way home he lighted upon Hudson's Touches, now 
known as Jan Mayen Island, the principal cape of 
which bears the name of Rudson's Point — which may 
be either Hudson's or Rudston's (after the Rudston 
mentioned in Baffin's fourth voyage) — while another is 
known as Young's Foreland, perhaps after the James 
Young who was the first in the ship to sight the coast 
of Greenland on the outward journey. He dropped 
anchor in the Thames on the 15th of September all 
well. He had not crossed the Pole, nor did he find 
Spitsbergen stretching up to 82°, as he said, its most 
northerly point being miles further south ; but he 
had gone beyond Van Heemskerck's furthest north and 
found a fishing ground for whales and walruses which 
proved of great commercial value, 




FRANZ JOSEF FIORD 



, > ' ° ,'Uo ace page 1 4 



THE WHALING TRADE BEGINS 15 

In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on 
Bear Island owing to the ice, stood away to the north- 
west, reached Spitsbergen, and worked along the 
western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice 
barred further advance. On his way up and down the 
coast he gave many of the capes and bays the names 
they still bear, and generally did so well that on his 
return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had 
left the service two years before, and made a sort of 
special commissioner by the Muscovy Company "for 
certain years upon a stipend certain " to make further 
discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether 
there was an open sea further northward than had 
already been found. In addition to searching for the 
open polar sea, he was to convoy the Mary Margaret, 
in which were six Biscay ners " expert in the killing of 
the whale," to Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in 
Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was to start the British 
whaling trade, the Mary Margaret being the first 
British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but 
hazardous occupation ; and she was under the com- 
mand of Thomas Edge, whose name is borne by 
Edge's Island. 

The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two 
years afterwards, a fleet of seven vessels went out to take 
part in the fishery and clear away the foreigners who 
had come to share in the good fortune ; the company 
claiming the islands on the ground of their purely 
imaginary discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting 
their claim on the real discovery by Van Heemskerck. 
In this fleet as chief pilot was William Baffin — his 
second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept 



16 SPITSBERGEN 

his eyes open, we have the first description of the 
Spitsbergen glaciers. He was at the time — the 29th of 
July — in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. " One thing 
more 1 observed," he says, "in this harbour which I 
have thought good also to set down. Purposing on a 
time to walk towards the mountains, I, and two more 
of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we 
supposed it to be ; but having gone a while upon it, we 
perceived it to be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded 
higher up, about the length of half a mile, and as we 
went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of ice, 
which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at 
the least, an exceeding great depth ; as we might well 
perceive by hearing the snow water run below, as it 
does oftentimes in a brook whose current is somewhat 
opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction 
I brake down some pieces of ice with a staff I had 
in my hand, which in their falling made a noise on 
each side much like to a piece of glass thrown down 
the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate 
the thickness or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms. 
This huge ice, in my opinion, is nothing but snow, 
which from time to time has for the most part been 
driven off the mountains ; and so continuing and in- 
creasing all the time of winter (which may be counted 
three-quarters of the year) cannot possibly be con- 
sumed with the thaw of so short a summer, but is only 
a little dissolved to moisture, whereby it becomes more 
compact, and with the quick succeeding frost is con- 
gealed to a firm ice." 

Next year he was out again in the Thomasine, one of 
a fleet of thirteen vessels, and in endeavouring to pass 



BAFFIN ON GLACIERS 17 

to the north-east, reached Wijde Bay, where at the 
point of the beach at the entrance he " set up a cross 
and nailed a sixpence thereon with the king's arms," 
probably the neatest property mark in history. Thence 
he went on to the entrance to Hinlopen Strait, complet- 
ing the journey along the north of the main island. It 
was on this voyage that he endeavoured to find his 
longitudes by observing the moon, for Baffin was the 
first who attempted to take a lunar at sea. 

Year by year the fishery increased, and the whale 
fishers multiplied as if the sea were a goldfield, the 
monopoly being respected until 1618, when the Dutch, 
who had all along prospered more than the rest, proved 
too strong for the English, and a compromise was 
arrived at by which the different harbours were 
allotted to the different nations for the processes 
necessary in the preparation of the whale products for 
shipment. But it was purely a summer industry. 
There was no colony, and it did not seem as though 
there would be one, for no man willing to winter in 
the place could be found. Vainly were rewards offered 
to those who would venture. In the north was the 
ever-present barrier of ice, more distant some years 
than others, but always there to come south and hold 
the islands in its grip when the fishery was over, and 
those who came early and those who stayed late saw 
enough of the wintry landscape to make them doubt 
if life were possible under such conditions. 

Then the idea, not new to Englishmen, that colonies 
should be started by criminals, was acted upon, and 
the Muscovy Company procured the reprieve of a 
batch of prisoners under sentence of death and landed 



18 SPITSBERGEN 

them in Spitsbergen under promise of a free pardon, 
a handsome reward, and full provisions and suitable 
clothes if they would remain there for a continuous 
twelve months. But, as the ship that brought them 
was preparing to return to London, "they conceived 
such a horror and inward fear in their hearts " that 
they besought the captain to take them back that they 
might be hanged rather than perish amid such desola- 
tion ; and the captain " being a pitiful and a merciful 
gentleman, would not by force constrain them to stay," 
and brought them home again, when the company — 
who could do no less— procured them a pardon. One 
captain — of a different disposition — had left nine men 
behind him, all of whom perished miserably ; and 
another, in 1630, left eight others, apparently through 
causes beyond his control, whose adventure was to 
form one of the most interesting episodes in Arctic 
story. 

It was on the 15th of August in that year that the 
Salutation sent Edward Pellham and his seven com- 
panions ashore to kill reindeer for the ship's provisions 
on her voyage home. Taking with them two dogs, a 
snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box, they landed 
near Black Point, between Green Harbour and Bell 
Sound, and, "laying fourteen tall and nimble deer 
along," camped for the night. During the night 
the weather changed and brought in the ice between 
the shore and the ship, and in the morning the ship 
had gone. The boat's crew made for Green Harbour, 
thinking she would put in there to pick them up, but 
she failed to appear, being due to leave the country in 
three days, and after a fruitless attempt to catch her at 



PELLHAM'S WINTER QUARTERS 19 

Bell Sound, they eventually took up their quarters 
there on the 3rd of September. 

Here was one of the so-called tents of the whale- 
fishers. "This," says Pellham, "which we call the 
tent, was a kind of house built of timber and boards 
very substantially, and covered with Flemish tiles, by 
the men of which nation it had in the time of their 
trading thither been built. Four-score foot long it is 
and in breadth fifty. The use of it was for the coopers, 
employed for the service of the company, to work, 
lodge, and live in, all the while they make casks for the 
putting up of the train oil." As this was too large for 
their comfort, they very sensibly built another within 
it. " Taking down another lesser tent therefore (built 
for the landmen hard by the other, wherein they lay 
whilst they made their oil), from thence we fetched our 
materials. That tent furnished us with one hundred 
and fifty deal boards, besides posts or stanchions and 
rafters. From three chimneys of the furnaces wherein 
they used to boil their oil, we brought a thousand 
bricks : there also found we three hogsheads of very 
fine lime, of which stuff we also fetched another hogs- 
head from Bottle Cove, on the other side of the sound, 
some three leagues distant. Mingling this lime with 
the sand of the sea-shore, we made very excellent good 
morter for the laying of our bricks : falling to work 
thereon, the weather was so extreme cold as that we 
were fain to make two fires to keep our morter from 
freezing. William Fakely and myself, undertaking the 
masonry, began to raise a wall of one brick thickness 
against the inner planks of the side of the tent. 
Whilst we were laying of these bricks, the rest of our 



20 SPITSBERGEN 

company were otherwise employed every one of them : 
some in taking them down, others in making of them 
clean and in bringing them in baskets into the tent. 
Some in making morter, and hewing of boards to build 
the other side withal, and two others all the while in 
flaying of our venison. And thus, having built the 
two outermost sides of the tent with bricks and morter, 
and our bricks now almost spent, we were enforced to 
build the two other sides with boards ; and that in this 
manner. First we nailed our deal boards on one side 
of the post or stanchion to the thickness of one foot : 
and on the other side in like manner : and so filling up 
the hollow place with sand, it became so tight and 
warm as not the least breath of air could possibly 
annoy us. Our chimney's vent was into the greater 
tent, being the breadth of one deal board and four foot 
long. The length of this our tent was twenty foot 
and the breadth sixteen ; the height ten ; our ceiling 
being deal boards five or six times double, the middle 
of one joining so close to the shut of the other that no 
wind could possibly get between. As for our door, 
besides our making it so close as possibly it could shut ; 
we lined it moreover with a bed that we found lying 
there, which came over both the opening and the shut- 
ting of it. As for windows, we made none at all, so that 
our light we brought in through the greater tent, by 
removing two or three tiles in the eaves, which fight 
came to us through the vent of our chimney. Our 
next work was to set up four cabins, billeting ourselves 
two and two in a cabin. Our beds were the deer skins 
dried, which we found to be extraordinary warm, and a 
very comfortable kind of lodging to us in our distress." 



THE FIRST WINTERING 21 

For fuel they knocked to pieces seven old boats left 
ashore by the ships, storing the wood over the beams 
of the tent so as to make a sort of floor protecting the 
interior from snow driven in under the tiles, and, in 
addition, they broke up a number of empty casks. To 
make the wood last as long as possible they hit upon a 
device for keeping the fire in — " when we raked up our 
fire at night, with a good quantity of ashes and of 
embers, we put into the midst of it a piece of elm 
wood, where, after it had lain sixteen hours, we at our 
opening of it found great store of fire upon it, whereupon 
we made a common practice of it ever after : it never 
went out in eight months together, or thereabouts." 

Upon the 12th of September a small quantity of 
drift ice came into the sound, on a piece of which they 
found two walruses asleep, when "William Fakely 
being ready with his harping iron, heaved it so strongly 
into the old one that he quite disturbed her of her rest : 
after which, she, receiving five or six thrusts with our 
lances, fell into a sounder sleep of death." The young 
one, refusing to leave her mother, was also killed ; and 
a week afterwards another walrus fell a victim ; but 
even with these the store of provisions was inadequate. 
To make the food last, they put themselves on an 
allowance of one good meal a day, except on Wednes- 
days and Fridays which were fasting days devoted to 
whale sundries — "a very loathsome meat," says Pell- 
ham, in brackets — later on, for four days in the week 
they fed upon " the unsavoury and mouldy fritters, and 
the other three we feasted it with bear and venison." 
" But," continues the narrative, "as if it were not 
enough for us to want meat, we now began to want 



22 SPITSBERGEN 

light also ; all our meals proved suppers now, for little 
light could we see ; even the glorious sun (as if unwill- 
ing to behold our miseries) masking his lovely face 
from us, under the sable veil of coal-black night." But 
they were equal to the emergency. "At the begin- 
ning of this darksome, irksome time, we sought some 
means of preserving light amongst us ; finding there- 
fore a piece of sheet lead over a seam of one of the 
coolers, that we ripped off and made three lamps of it, 
which, maintaining with oil that we found in the 
coopers' tent, and rope-yarn serving us instead of 
candle-wicks, we kept them continually burning." 

Cheerful and resourceful as they were, their fits of de- 
pression were not infrequent. "Our extremities being 
so many, made us sometimes in impatient speeches 
to break forth against the causers of our miseries ; but 
then again, our consciences telling us of our own evil 
deservings, we took it either for a punishment upon us 
for our former wicked lives ; or else for an example of 
God's mercy in our wonderful deliverance : humbling 
ourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, we 
cast down ourselves before him in prayer, two or three 
times a day, which course we constantly held all the 
time of our misery." 

Their prospects got worse, but they never lost a 
little hope. " The new year now began : as the days 
began to lengthen, so the cold began to strengthen ; 
which cold came at last to that extremity, as that it 
would raise blisters on our flesh, as if we had been 
burnt with fire, and if we touched iron at any time it 
would stick to our fingers like bird-lime : sometimes if 
we went but out of doors to fetch in a little water, the 



THE SUN REAPPEARS 23 

cold would nip us in such a sort that it made us as sore 
as if we had been beaten in some cruel manner." 

Provisions were running low ; the men began to talk 
of famine, and the outlook became daily gloomier until 
the 3rd of February. " This proved a marvellous cold 
day ; yet a fair and clear one ; about the middle 
whereof, all clouds now quite dispersed and night's 
sable curtain drawn, Aurora with her golden face 
smiled once again upon us, at her rising out of her 
bed ; for now the glorious sun with his glittering beams 
began to gild the highest tops of the lofty mountains. 
The brightness of the sun and the whiteness of the 
snow, both together, were such as that it was able to 
revive even a dying spirit. But to make a new addi- 
tion to our new joy, we might perceive two bears (a she 
one with her cub) now coming towards our tent ; 
whereupon we, straight arming ourselves with our lances, 
issued out of the tent to await her coming. She soon 
cast her greedy eyes upon us, and with full hopes of 
devouring us she made the more haste unto us ; but 
with our hearty lances we gave her such a welcome as 
that she fell down and biting the very snow for anger." 

Then more bears came to be eaten ; then the birds 
began to arrive, and the foxes to come out of their 
winter earths to be trapped to the number of fifty ; 
then the reindeer returned ; and then, on the 25th May, 
two ships of Hull came into the sound from which a 
boat's crew landing unperceived came close up to the 
tent and shouted "Hey!" And Ayers, the only man 
at the moment in the outer tent, shouted " Ho I" — and 
Pellham and his shipmates had proved it to be possible 
to live through a winter in Spitsbergen. 



CHAPTER II 
SPITSBERGEN 

(continued) 

The summer town of Smeerenberg — Himkoff winters in North East Land — 
Phipps reaches 80° 48' — Scoresby the elder reaches 81° 30' — Scoresby the 
younger — Voyage of the Dorothea and Trent under Buchan and Franklin 
— Parry reaches 82° 45' — Torell and Nordenskiold — Carlsen sails round 
Spitsbergen — Swedish North Polar expedition under Nordenskiold — 
Lamont — The Diana coal mine — Leigh Smith — Conway. 

THIS wintering of the Salutation men occurred 
when the Spitsbergen fisheries were most flourish- 
ing, the prosperity continuing for seven more years. 
So lucrative was the trade that on Amsterdam Island 
under Hakluyt Headland, within fifteen miles of 80° 
north latitude, about as far from the North Pole as 
St. Malo is from John o' Groat's, there sprang up as 
a summer resort the Dutch village of Smeerenberg. 
Such was the bustle produced by the yearly visit of 
two or three hundred double-manned vessels, contain- 
ing from twelve thousand to eighteen thousand men, 
that this village of the farthest north was as busy as a 
manufacturing town. The incitement of prices pro- 
portionate to the latitude attracted hundreds of annual 
settlers, who throve on the sale of brandy, wine, 
tobacco, and sundries to the whale-fishers in shops of 
all varieties, including bakehouses, where the blowing 
of a horn let the sailors know that the bread had just 

24 



SMEERENBERG 25 

been drawn hot from the oven. In fact, hot rolls and 
every delicacy could be had in Smeerenberg, which the 
Dutch averred was as flourishing as Batavia, founded 
by them a few years before. And when winter was 
just about due every man — and woman — went back to 
Holland. But the life of Smeerenberg was a short 
and a merry one, for in 1640 the shore fisheries were 
failing, and a year or so afterwards the lingerers of its 
last season left it for good, clearing out from its houses 
of brick and wood, demolishing its furnaces, removing 
its copper cauldrons and coolers and casks and every- 
thing that could be taken away, and leaving it in 
desolation to be occupied in the next and subsequent 
summers by polar bears. 

Like all seaside resorts it had its rival. Close by is 
the Cookery-of- Haarlem, abandoned at the same time, 
but rather more hurriedly. When Martens went there 
on the 15th of July, 1671, he found four houses still 
standing, in one of which were " several barrels or 
kardels that were quite decayed, the ice standing in 
the same shape the vessels had been made of : an anvil, 
smith's tongs, and other tools belonging to the cookery, 
were frozen up in the ice ; the kettle was still standing 
as it was set, and the wooden troughs stood by it." 
Behind these houses "are high mountains," he con- 
tinues, " if one climbeth upon these, as we do on others, 
and doth not mark every step with chalk, one doth not 
know how to get down again : when you go up you 
think it to be very easy to be down ; but when you 
descend it is very difficult and dangerous, so that many 
have fallen and lost their lives." Absurd as this chalk- 
ing of the steps may seem, there have been many who 



26 SPITSBERGEN 

have taken the hint from the careful Martens when 
climbing in Spitsbergen, and many who have regretted 
not having done so. 

In ordinary summers the west side of Spitsbergen is 
clear of ice, not so the eastern side, the difference being 
due to the Gulf Stream, which, though evidently fail- 
ing, is traceable along the coast round Hakluyt Head- 
land and up to the ice barrier. In addition to this 
there is the general cause, whatever it may be, which 
makes the western coasts of all Arctic lands, isolated 
or not, warmer than the eastern. Greenland, for 
instance, is more approachable in summer from Davis 
Strait than from the Greenland Sea, Novaya Zemlya 
from Barents Sea than from Kara Sea, and so on with 
all the islands and peninsulas of Asia and America. 
Hence all this whaling was confined practically to the 
western harbours of West Spitsbergen, the largest of 
the group of islands. The next largest, North East 
Land, was never much visited except from Hinlopen 
Strait, though the Russians from time to time took 
some interest in the north and east harbours, and would 
have taken more, for it abounded in reindeer, if the 
ice had not made the landing an enterprise of some 
difficulty. 

On the east coast of North East Land, in 1743, a 
Russian whaler was caught in the pack, and the mate, 
Alexis Himkoff, remembering that a house had been 
built there some years before, went on shore with his 
godson, Ivan Himkoff, and two sailors, Scharapoff and 
Weregin, in search of it, in case the ship should have 
to be abandoned. They found the house, but, on 
returning to the shore next morning, could see nothing 



HIMKOFF IN NORTH EAST LAND 27 

of the ship, which had apparently been carried away 
and crushed in the ice. They had brought with them 
a musket, a powder-horn with twelve charges of 
powder, twelve bullets, an axe, a small kettle, a bag 
with about twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder- 
box and tinder, a bladder of tobacco, and every man 
had his pipe. That was their outfit. 

The house was thirty-six feet in length, and eighteen 
in height and breadth. It contained a small ante- 
chamber about twelve feet broad, which had two doors, 
one to close it from the outer air, the other admitting 
to the inner room in which was a Russian stove, a kind 
of oven without a chimney, serving at will for heating, 
for baking, or for sleeping on. Realising that they had 
a long stay before them, they began by shooting 
twelve reindeer, one for each bullet. They then re- 
paired the house, stopping up all the crevices with 
moss ; and they then laid in a store of fuel from the 
driftwood, there being no trees on the island. On the 
beach they found some boards with nails in them, and 
a long iron hook and a few other pieces of old iron. 
And also there was a root of a fir tree in shape not 
unlike a bow. Those were the materials they had to 
make the best of. 

A large stone served for an anvil, a pair of deer horns 
did duty for tongs, and with these and the fire, the iron 
hook was made into a hammer ; and then two of the 
nails were shaped into spear-heads, which were tied to 
sticks from the driftwood with strips of deerskin. 
With these weapons they began by killing a bear, 
whose flesh they ate, whose skin they kept, and whose 
tendons they made into thread and a string for the 



28 SPITSBERGEN 

bow formed out of the root of the fir tree. More 
nails were forged into arrow-heads, tied with sinew on 
to light sticks cut with the knife, the shafts being 
feathered from the feathers of seafowl. With these 
weapons they shot, before they had finished, two hun- 
dred and fifty reindeer, and they kept the skins, as they 
did also those of a large number of blue and white 
foxes, as we shall see in the sequel. In their own 
protection they killed nine bears, the only one they 
deliberately attacked being the first. 

To be sure of keeping their fire alight they modelled 
a lamp out of clay, which they filled with deer-fat, 
with twisted linen for a wick ; but the clay was too 
porous, the fat ran through it; so they made another 
lamp of the same stuff, dried it in the air, heated it red 
hot, and cooled it in a sort of thin starch made of flour 
and water, strengthening the pottery by pasting linen 
rags over it. The result was so successful that they 
made a second lamp as a reserve. Some wreckage 
gave them a little cordage and a quantity of oakum, 
which came in for lamp-wicks. The lamp, like the 
sacred fire, was never allowed to go out. To make 
themselves clothes, they soaked skins in fresh water till 
the hair could be pulled off easily, and rubbed them 
well, and then rubbed deer fat into them until they 
were pliant and supple. Some of the skins they pre- 
pared as furs. Out of nails they, after many failures, 
made awls and needles, getting the eyes by piercing the 
heads with the point of the knife, and smoothing and 
pointing them by rounding and whetting them on a 
stone. 

For six years they lived in this desert place. Then 



PHIPPS AND LUTWIDGE 29 

one of them, Weregin, died of scurvy, and their 
gloomy forebodings as to which was to be taken next 
were broken in upon by their sighting a ship, to which 
they signalled with a flag made of deerskin. The 
signal was seen and they were rescued ; and they took 
back to Archangel two thousand pounds weight of 
reindeer fat, their bales of skins and furs, their bow and 
arrows and spears, and in short everything they pos- 
sessed. And they arrived there on the 28th of Sep- 
tember, 1749, comfortably off from the value of the 
goods they brought with them — the heroes of one of 
the very best of true desert island stories. 

Like most Russians they do not seem to have 
suffered much from the cold or to have been incon- 
venienced by the summer heat, which is also consider- 
able. In 1773, on the 13th of June, when Phipps 
and Lutwidge anchored in Fair Haven, round by 
Amsterdam Island, they found the thermometer reach 
58j° at noon and descend no lower than 51° at mid- 
night, and on the 16th it rose in the sun to 89 J° till a 
light breeze made it fall almost suddenly ten degrees. 
This was the expedition sent out to the North Pole, 
mainly at the instigation of Daines Barrington, Gilbert 
White's friend. The ships were the Hacehorse and 
Carcass ; and, as every one knows, or ought to know, 
as midshipman with Captain Lutwidge went Horatio 
Nelson, then a boy of fourteen, who was to figure 
largely in the world, though on this occasion he did 
nothing remarkable beyond attacking a polar bear, 
whose skin he thought would make a nice present for 
his father, and bringing his boat to the rescue when 
one of the Racehorse boats was attacked by walruses. 



30 SPITSBERGEN 

For another thing the expedition is memorable, that 
being that the useful apparatus for the distillation of 
fresh water from sea water, known to every seafarer, 
was first used on this voyage, Dr. Irving, its inventor, 
being the surgeon of the Racehorse. Another item to 
be noted is that Phipps had with him a Cavendish 
. thermometer, which he tried the day after he crossed 
the Arctic Circle, and found that at a depth of 780 
fathoms the temperature was 26°, while at the surface 
it was 48°. 

Phipps did all he could to go north, and, in 
longitude 14° 59' east, reached 80° 48', the nearest to 
the Pole up to then, but he was foiled by the ice 
barrier, which he tried to penetrate again and again. 
He got his ships caught in the ice and took to his 
boats, thinking he would have to abandon them, when 
fortunately the pack drifted south, and the vessels, 
clearing themselves under sail, caught the boats up 
and took them on board. Then he went along the 
edge of the ice westward, and, finding no opening, 
gave the venture up and sailed for home. 

The next to do good work within this area was 
William Scoresby the elder, whose only equal as a 
whale-fisher was his son. To him we owe the inven- 
tion of the crow's nest, that cylindrical frame covered 
with canvas, entrance to which is given by a trap-hatch 
in the base, reached by a Jacob's ladder from the top- 
mast crosstrees, the conning-tower, so to speak, carried 
since by every ship on Arctic service. He was also 
the inventor of the ice-drill and many another imple- 
ment and device used in Polar navigation ; and he it 
was who sloped off his fore and main courses to come 




WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS 



To face page 30 



WILLIAM SCORESBY 31 

inboard to a boom fitted to the foot, used by every 
whaler, by which, in fact, you may know them. He 
also, long before the A merica, discovered the advantage 
of flat sails, and, in order to get his weights well down, 
he filled his casks with water as ballast and packed 
them with shingle, so that, instead of going out light, 
he was in the best of trim, with a power of beating 
to windward that took him to the fishing ground in 
double quick time and further into the ice, when he 
chose, than any of his competitors. 

Out in the Resolution in 1806 he saw from his crow's 
nest, in which he often spent a dozen hours at a stretch, 
that below the ice -blink — the white line in the sky 
which betokens the presence of ice — there was a blue- 
grey streak denoting open water, and that the motion 
of the sea around the ship must be due to a swell, 
which could only come from open water to the north- 
ward. On the 13th of May he started for this. By 
sawing the ice, hammering at it, dropping his boats on 
to it from the bow, sallying the ship — that is, rolling 
her by running the crew backwards and forwards 
across her deck — and, in fact, using every means he 
could think of, he passed the barrier in the eightieth 
parallel, and, on the 24th of June, attained 81° 30', the 
farthest north ever reached by a sailing vessel in these 
seas. On that day there was not a ship within three 
hundred and fifty miles of the Resolution. The bold 
venture proved a thorough success ; in thirty-two days 
he filled up with twenty-four whales, two seals, two 
walruses, and a narwhal — one of the most profitable 
of his thirty voyages. 

In this voyage the chief officer was his son, William 



32 SPITSBERGEN 

Scoresby the younger, whose Arctic Regions is the best 
book ever written on the northern seas. Sent by his 
father to Edinburgh University where he studied 
almost every branch of natural and physical science, he 
was thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical 
experience as a whaling captain and trained observer 
stood him in such stead that his book is still the basis 
of all scientific Polar research. His description of the 
Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful to- 
day as when he wrote it. " Spitsbergen and its islands, 
with some other countries within the Arctic Circle, 
exhibit a kind of scenery which is altogether novel. 
The principal objects which strike the eye are innumer- 
able mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles, 
rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of 
3000 or 4000 feet, the colour of which, at a moderate 
distance, appears to be blackish shades of brown, green, 
grey and purple ; snow or ice, in striae or patches, 
occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of 
the hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and 
filling with extended beds the most considerable valleys ; 
and ice of the glacier form, occurring at intervals all 
along the coast, in particular situations as already de- 
scribed, in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or 
vitreous appearance of the icy precipices ; the purity, 
whiteness, and beauty of the sloping expanse formed 
by their snowy surfaces ; the gloomy shade presented 
by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks, 
perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black 
lichens, with the sudden transitions into a robe of 
purest white, where patches or beds of snow occur, 
present a variety and extent of contrast altogether 



FRANKLIN'S FIRST ARCTIC VOYAGE 33 

peculiar; which, when enlightened by the occasional 
ethereal brilliancy of the Polar sky, and harmonised in 
its serenity with the calmness of the ocean, constitute a 
picture both novel and magnificent. There is, indeed, 
a kind of majesty, not to be conveyed in words, in 
these extraordinary accumulations of snow and ice in 
the valleys, and in the rocks above rocks and peaks 
above peaks, in the mountain groups, seen rising above 
the ordinary elevation of the clouds, and terminating 
occasionally in crests of snow, especially when you 
approach the shore under the shelter of the impene- 
trable density of a summer fog ; in which case the fog 
sometimes disperses like the drawing of a curtain, when 
the strong contrast of light and shade, heightened by a 
cloudless atmosphere and powerful sun, bursts on the 
senses in a brilliant exhibition resembling the produc- 
tion of magic." 

In 1818 there went out the first British expedition 
prepared to winter in the north. The vessels were two 
whalers bought into the navy, the Dorothea and Trent, 
the first under the command of David Buchan, the 
other under that of John Franklin. Neither officer 
had been in the Arctic region before, but Buchan had 
done excellent service in surveying Newfoundland, and 
Franklin had been marked for special duty owing to his 
work in Australian seas under his cousin, Matthew 
Flinders, and for the manner in which on his way home 
he had acted as signal officer to Nathaniel Dance in 
that ever-memorable victory off the Straits of Malacca, 
when the Indiamen defeated and pursued a French 
fleet under Admiral Linois. Dance's report gave 
Franklin a further chance of distinction, for it led to 



34 SPITSBERGEN 

his appointment to the Bellerophon, whose signal 
officer he was during the battle of Trafalgar. 

They were instructed to proceed to the North Pole, 
thence to continue on to Bering Strait direct, or by the 
best route they could find, to make their way to the 
Sandwich Islands or New Albion, and thence to come 
back through Bering Strait eastward, keeping in sight 
and approaching the coast of America whenever the 
position of the ice permitted them so to do. A nice 
little programme. But they started too early in a bad 
season ; they did not get so far north as Phipps ; they 
made accurate surveys and other observations ; in 
exploration they did little ; and they had many adven- 
tures. 

As they ranged along the western side of Spitsbergen 
the weather was severe. The snow fell in heavy 
showers, and several tons' weight of ice accumulated 
about the sides of the Trent, and formed a complete 
casing to the planks, which received an additional layer 
at each plunge of the vessel. So great, indeed, was 
the accumulation about the bows, that they were 
obliged to cut it away repeatedly with axes to relieve 
the bowsprit from the enormous weight that was 
attached to it : and the ropes were so thickly covered 
with ice that it was necessary to beat them with large 
sticks to keep them in a state of readiness. In the 
gale the ships parted company, but they met again at 
the rendezvous in Magdalena Bay. 

Later on, off Cloven Cliff, there was a walrus fight 
begun by the seamen and continued by the walruses 
when they found themselves more at home in the 
water than on the ice. They rose in numbers about 




SIR JOHN FRANKLIN 



1 o face page 34 



A FIGHT WITH WALRUSES 35 

the boats, rushing at them, snorting with rage, en- 
deavouring to upset them or stave them in by hooking 
their tusks on the gunwales, or butting at them with 
their heads. " It was the opinion of our people," says 
Beechey, " that in this assault the walruses were led on 
by one animal in particular, a much larger and more 
formidable beast than any of the others ; and they 
directed their efforts more particularly towards him, 
but he withstood all the blows of their tomahawks 
without flinching, and his tough hide resisted the entry 
of the whale lances, which were, unfortunately, not 
very sharp, and soon bent double. The herd was so 
numerous, and their attacks so incessant, that there 
was not time to load a musket, which, indeed, was the 
only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The 
purser, fortunately, had his gun loaded, and the whole 
now being nearly exhausted with chopping and stick- 
ing at their assailants, he snatched it up, and, thrust- 
ing the muzzle down the throat of the leader, fired 
into him. The wound proved mortal, and the animal 
fell back amongst his companions, who immediately 
desisted from their attack, assembled round him, and 
in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as hard 
as they could with their leader, whom they actually 
bore up with their tusks and assiduously preserved 
from sinking." 

On one occasion Franklin and Beechey, when out in 
a boat together, witnessed the launch of an iceberg. 
They had approached the end of a glacier and were 
trying to search into the recess of a deep cavern at 
its foot when they heard a report as if of a cannon, 
and, turning to the quarter whence it proceeded, per- 



36 SPITSBERGEN 

ceived an immense piece of the front of the cliff of ice 
gliding down from a height of two hundred feet at 
least into the sea, and dispersing the water in every 
direction, accompanied by a loud grinding noise, and 
followed by a quantity of water, which, lodged in the 
fissures, made its escape in numberless small cataracts 
over the front of the glacier. They kept the boat's 
head in the direction of the sea and thus escaped 
disaster, for the disturbance occasioned by the plunge 
of this enormous fragment caused a succession of 
rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay, 
making its shores resound as it travelled along it, and 
at a distance of four miles was so considerable that it 
became necessary to right the Dorothea, which was then 
careening, by instantly releasing the tackles which con- 
fined her. The piece that had been disengaged wholly 
disappeared under water, and nothing was seen but a 
violent boiling of the sea and a shooting up of clouds 
of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great 
cataract. After a short time it reappeared, raising its 
head full a hundred feet above the surface, with water 
pouring down from all parts of it ; and then, labouring 
as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over, 
and, after rocking about for some minutes, became 
settled. It was nearly a quarter of a mile round and 
floated sixty feet out of the water, and making a 
fair allowance for its inequalities, was computed to 
weigh 421,600 tons. 

There were frequent landings, often with difficulties 
in the return, due generally to attempts at making a 
short cut to the shore or across the ice. Of these 
short cuts the very shortest was that made by one of 




TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT' 



To face page 36 



A DANGEROUS DESCENT 37 

the sailors named Spinks, who was out with a party in 
pursuit of reindeer. The ardour of the chase had led 
them beyond the prescribed limits, and when the 
signal was made for their return to the boat some of 
them were upon the top of a hill. Spinks, an active 
and zealous fellow, anxious to be first at his post, 
thought he would outstrip his comrades by descending 
the snow, which was banked against the mountain at 
an angle of about 40° with the horizon, and rested 
against a small glacier on the left. The height was 
about two thousand feet, and in the event of his foot 
slipping there was nothing to impede his progress until 
he reached the beach, either by the slope or the more 
terrific descent of the face of the glacier. He began 
his career by digging his heels into the snow, the 
surface of which was rather hard. At first he got on 
very well, but presently his foot slipped, or the snow 
was too hard for his heel to make an impression, and 
he increased in speed, keeping his balance, however, by 
means of his hands. In a very short time his descent 
was fearfully quick ; the fine snow flew about him like 
dust, and there seemed but little chance of his reach- 
ing the bottom in safety, especially as his course was 
taking him in the direction of the glacier. For a 
moment he was lost sight of behind a crag of the 
mountain, and it was thought he had gone over the 
glacier, but with great presence of mind and dexterity, 
"by holding water first with one hand and then the 
other," to use his own expression, he contrived to 
escape the danger, and, like a skilful pilot, steered into 
a place of refuge amid a bed of soft snow recently 
drifted against the hill. When he extricated himself 



38 SPITSBERGEN 

from the depths into which he had been plunged he 
had to hold together his tattered clothes, for he had 
worn away two pairs of trousers and something more. 
That was all his damage, and we shall meet with him 
again in the west out with Franklin and Captain Back. 
In the morning of the 30th of July the ships found 
themselves caught in a gale with the ice close to lee- 
ward. The only way of escaping destruction seemed 
to be by taking refuge in the pack. It was a desperate 
expedient rarely resorted to by whalers and only in 
extreme cases. In the Trent a cable was cut up into 
thirty-foot lengths, and these, with plates of iron four 
feet square, supplied as fenders, and some walrus hides, 
were hung around her, mainly about her bows ; the 
masts were secured with extra ropes, and the hatches 
were battened and nailed down. When a few fathoms 
from the ice those on board searched with anxiety for 
an opening in the pack, but saw nothing but an un- 
broken line of furious breakers with huge masses heav- 
ing and plunging with the waves and dashing together 
with a violence that nothing but a solid body seemed 
likely to withstand ; and the noise was so great that the 
orders to the crew could with difficulty be heard. At 
one moment the sea was bursting upon the ice blocks 
and burying them deep beneath its wave, and the next, 
as the buoyancy brought them up again, the water was 
pouring in foaming cataracts over their edges, the 
masses rocking and labouring in their bed, grinding 
and striving with each other until one was either split 
with the shock or lifted on to the top of its neighbour. 
Far as the eye could reach the turmoil stretched, and 
overhead was the clearness of a calm and silvery 






THE SHIPS RUN INTO THE PACK 39 

atmosphere bounded by a dark line of storm cloud 
lowering over the masts as if to mark the confines 
within which no effort would avail. 

"At this instant," says Beechey, "when we were 
about to put the strength of our little vessel in com- 
petition with that of the great icy continent, and when 
it seemed almost presumption to reckon on the possi- 
bility of her surviving the unequal conflict, it was 
gratifying in the extreme to observe in all our crew the 
greatest calmness and resolution. If ever the fortitude 
of seamen was fairly tried it was assuredly not less so 
than on this occasion ; and I will not conceal the pride 
I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in which 
the orders were issued by the commander of our little 
vessel, and the promptitude and steadiness with which 
they were executed by the crew." 

The brig was steered bow on to the ice. Every man 
instinctively gripped his hold, and with his eyes fixed 
on the masts awaited the moment of concussion. In 
an instant they all lost their footing, the masts bent 
with the shock, and the timbers cracked below ; the 
vessel staggered and seemed to recoil, when the next 
wave, curling up under her counter, drove her about her 
own length within the edge of the ice, where she gave 
a roll and was thrown broadside to the wind by the 
succeeding wave which beat furiously against her stern, 
bringing her lee in touch with the main mass and leav- 
ing her weather side exposed to a floe about twice her 
size. Battered on all sides, tossed from fragment to 
fragment, nothing could be done but await the issue, 
for the men could hardly keep their feet, the motion 
being so great that the ship's bell, which in the heaviest 



40 SPITSBERGEN 

gale had never struck of itself, now tolled so continu- 
ously that it had to be muffled. 

After a time an effort was made to put the vessel 
before the wind and drive her further into the pack. 
Some of the men gained the fore-topsail-yard and let a 
reef out of the sail, and the jib was dragged half up 
the stay by the windlass. The brig swung into posi- 
tion, and, aided by a mass under her stern, split the 
block, fourteen feet thick, which had barred her way, 
and made a passage for herself into comparative safety ; 
and after some four hours the gale moderated. Strained 
and leaking the Trent had suffered much, but the 
Dorothea had been damaged more ; and both returned 
to Fair Haven, where it was found hopeless to con- 
tinue the voyage, and thence, when the ships had been 
temporarily repaired, they sailed for England. The 
expedition had not done much, but it had given their 
Arctic schooling to Franklin, Beechey, and Back. 

In May, 1827, Parry, in the Hecla, was forced to 
run into the ice, but not quite in the same way as 
Buchan did. He was beset for three weeks, and then, 
getting clear, proceeded to the Seven Islands to the 
north of Spitsbergen, on one of which, Walden, he 
placed a reserve of provisions ; the ship, after reaching 
81° 5', going to Treurenberg Bay, in Hinlopen Strait, 
to await his return. 

From here he made his dash for the Pole. He had 
with him two boats of his own design, seven feet in 
beam, twenty in length. On each side of the keel was 
a strong runner, shod with steel, upon which the boat 
stood upright on the ice. They were so built that they 
would have floated as bags had they been stove in. On 



PARRY'S DASH FOR THE POLE 41 

ash and hickory timbers, an inch by an inch and a half 
thick, placed a foot apart, with a half- timber of smaller 
size between each, was stretched a casing of waterproof 
canvas tarred on the outer side and protected by a skin 
of fir three-sixteenths of an inch thick, over this came 
a sheet of stout felt, and over all a skin of oak of the 
same thickness as the fir, each boat weighing about 
fourteen hundredweight — that is the hull, as launched. 
One of these boats was named the Enterprise, the other 
the Endeavour. They were intended to be hauled by 
reindeer, but the state of the ice rendered this imprac- 
ticable and the men did the work themselves. Parry 
took command of the Enterprise, the other being in 
charge of Lieutenant James Clark Ross ; and, alto- 
gether, officers and men numbered twenty-eight. 

From Little Table Island, where they left a reserve 
as they had done at Walden, they started for the north 
— two heavy boats laden with food for seventy days 
and clothing for twenty-eight men, with a compact 
equipment including light sledges, travelling in a sea 
crowded or covered with ice in every form, large and 
small, over which they were dragged up and down 
hummocks, round and among crags and ridges, along 
surfaces of every kind of ruggedness, of every slope 
and irregularity, the few flat stretches broken with 
patches of sharp crystals or waist-deep snow ; through 
lanes and pools of water with frequent ferryings and 
transhipments, in sunshine and fog, and, strange to 
say, frequently in pouring rain. They travelled by 
night and rested by day, though, of course, there was 
daylight all the time. " The advantages of this plan," 
says Parry, "which was occasionally deranged by cir- 



42 SPITSBERGEN 

cumstances, consisted, first in our avoiding the intense 
and oppressive glare from the snow during the time of 
the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent in some 
degree the painful inflammation in the eyes called 
snow-blindness which is common in all snowy coun- 
tries. We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during 
the hours of rest and had a better chance of drying our 
clothes ; besides which no small advantage was derived 
from the snow being harder at night for travelling. 
When we rose in the evening we commenced our day 
by prayers, after which we took off our sleeping dresses 
and put on those for travelling, the former being made 
of camlet lined with racoon skin, and the latter of 
strong blue, box cloth. We made a point of always 
putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling 
in, whether they had dried during the day or not, and 
I believe it was only in five or six instances that they 
were not either still wet or hard frozen." When halted 
for rest the boats were placed alongside each other, 
with their sterns to the wind, the snow or wet cleared 
out of them, and the sails, held up by the bamboo 
masts and three paddles, were placed over them as 
awnings with the entrance at the bow. 

Progress was not great, sometimes fifty yards an hour, 
occasionally twelve miles a day, that is on the ice, for 
soon it was apparent that the distance gained by 
reckoning was greater than that given by observation, 
and Parry realised to his dismay that the pack was 
drifting south while he was going north. But he 
kept on till on the 21st of July he reached 82° 45', 
which remained the farthest north for forty -nine 
years. 



TORELL AND NORDENSKIOLD 43 

During the last few days he had been drifting south 
in the day almost as far as he had advanced north in 
the night, and, having used up half his provisions, he 
reluctantly abandoned the struggle as hopeless. " As 
we travelled," he says, "by far the greater part of our 
distance on the ice, three, and not infrequently, five 
times over, we may safely multiply the road by 2 \ ; 
so that our whole distance, on a very moderate cal- 
culation, amounted to five hundred and eighty geo- 
graphical miles, or six hundred and sixty-eight statute 
miles ; being nearly sufficient to have reached the Pole 
in a direct line." 

In 1858 a Swedish expedition under Otto Torell 
started from Hammerfest for Spitsbergen. He was 
accompanied by A. Quennerstedt and Adolf Erik 
Nordenskiold. They explored Horn Sound, Bell 
Sound, and Green Harbour. In Bell Sound they 
dredged with great success for mollusca ; they made a 
botanical collection, chiefly of mosses and lichens, 
found tertiary plant fossils, and, in the North Harbour, 
carboniferous limestone beds with the tertiary plant- 
bearing strata above them — in short, Nordenskiold 
entered upon his long and fruitful study of Spits- 
bergen geology. Three years afterwards Torell took 
out another expedition, Nordenskiold going with him, 
which was to explore the northern coast and then 
make for the far north ; but the ice conditions kept 
them in Treurenberg Bay, where they visited Hecla 
Cove and found Parry's flagstaff. In the course of 
their journeys they noticed in Cross Bay the first 
known Spitsbergen fern, Cystopteris fragilis ; by the 
side of a freshwater lake in Wijde Bay an Alpine 



44 SPITSBERGEN 

char was picked up ; and, at Shoal Point, Torell dis- 
covered in a mass of driftwood a specimen of the un- 
mistakable Entada bean, two and a quarter inches 
across, brought there from the West Indies by the 
Gulf Stream, as other specimens have been drifted to 
European shores. 

In 1864, the year that Elling Carlsen found the 
navigation so open that he passed the Northern Gate 
and sailed round Spitsbergen, Nordenskiold, at the 
head of a small expedition, was at work in Ice Fjord, 
and, unable to go north on account of the ice, rounded 
South Cape, entered Stor Fjord, visited Edge's Land 
and Barents Land, and from the summit of White 
Mountain, near Unicorn Bay, rediscovered the west 
coast of the island reported by Edge two hundred and 
fifty years before. In 1868, as leader of the Swedish 
North Polar Expedition in the Sofia, he reached 
81° 42', in 17° 30' east, the highest latitude then 
reached by a steam vessel, and his farthest north ; his 
next Polar venture, four years afterwards, in the 
Polhem, ending in his having to winter in Mossel Bay, 
where his generous endeavour to feed one hundred and 
one extra men, who were ice-bound, on provisions 
intended for his own twenty-four, would have ended in 
disaster had he not been relieved by Leigh Smith in the 
Diana. 

The Diana was the steam yacht built for James 
Lamont, in which, like Leigh Smith, he cruised for 
several seasons in the Arctic seas, combining sport with 
exploration in a truly admirable way. To these two 
yachtsmen we owe much of our knowledge of Spits- 
bergen, Novaya Zemlya, and Franz Josef Land, but we 



THE DIANA COAL MINE 45 

can only give them passing mention here. We must, 
however, find room for Lamont's useful find of the 
coal mine in Advent Bay, from which he filled up the 
Dianas bunkers. " When I paid a visit to the coal 
mine," he says, " I found it quite a busy scene for a 
quiet Arctic shore. The engineer and fireman directed 
the blasting, my English hands quarried, while the 
Norwegians carried the sacks down the hill. The old 
mate, the many-sidedness of whose character I have 
so much valued on my various voyages, was digging 
away with the rest, though I am sorry that in the 
sketch his weather-beaten face is turned away. All 
the rest are portraits, and the reader will notice that 
Arctic work is not done in the attractive uniforms 
known to Cowes and Hyde. The coal-bed was about 
three feet thick, and lay very horizontally between 
two layers of soft, mud-coloured limestone. It was 
harder to obtain than I anticipated, because saturated, 
through all the cracks and interstices, with water which 
had frozen into ice more difficult to break through 
than the coal itself, thereby rendering these fissures 
worse than useless in quarrying. This is tertiary coal, 
and is of fair quality, but contains a good deal of 
sulphur. When we began to burn it, so much water 
and ice was unavoidably mixed with it that the 
engineers had to let it drain on deck in the hot sun 
and then mix it with an equal bulk of Scotch coal. 
Consumed in this way the ten tons obtained in three 
days was a useful addition to the fast-dwindling stock 
on board." 

While Nordenskiold was at Mossel Bay he attempted 
a journey to the north, but was stopped by the ice 



46 SPITSBERGEN 

at Seven Islands, and returned round North East 
Land. It took him five days to pass across the 
twenty- three miles between Phipps Island and Cape 
Platen over pyramids of angular ice up to thirty 
feet high. On the coast, which he found extending, 
as Leigh Smith had reported, much further to the 
east than was shown on the charts, he met with the 
inland ice ending in precipices from two thousand to 
three thousand feet high. Ascending this ice they 
had scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before one of 
the men disappeared at a place where the surface was 
level, and so instantaneously that he could not even 
give a cry for help. When they looked into the hole 
they found him hanging on to the drag-line, to which 
he was fastened with reindeer harness, over a deep 
abyss. Had his arms slipped out of the harness, a 
single belt, he would have been lost. Along the level 
surface every puff of wind drove a stream of fine snow- 
dust, which, from the ease with which it penetrated 
everywhere, was as the fine sand of the desert to the 
travellers in the Sahara. By means of this fine snow- 
dust, steadily driven forward by the wind, the upper 
part of the glacier — which did not consist of ice, but 
of hard packed blinding white snow — was glazed and 
polished so that it seemed to be a faultless, spotless 
floor of white marble, or rather a white satin carpet. 
Examination showed that the snow, at a depth of four 
to six feet, passed into ice, being changed first into a 
stratum of ice crystals, partly large and perfect, then 
to a crystalline mass of ice, and finally to hard glacier 
ice, in which could still be observed numerous air 
cavities compressed by the overlying weight ; and, 



CONWAY'S EXPLORATIONS 47 

when, as the surface thaws, the pressure of the en- 
closed air exceeds that of the superincumbent weight, 
these cavities break up with the peculiar cracking 
sound heard in summer from the glacier ice that floats 
about in the fjords. Occasionally broad channels were 
crossed, of which the only way to ascertain the depth 
was to lower a man into them, and frequently he had 
to be hoisted up again without having reached the 
bottom; such danger areas causing so circuitous a 
route that much progress was impossible. 

Prior to the explorations of Sir Martin Conway in 
1896, it was supposed that this inland ice extended 
over all the islands of the group, an area exceeding 
twenty thousand square miles. He, however, proved 
that so far as West Spitsbergen was concerned, this 
was not the case. Crossing it he found much of the 
interior a complex of mountains and valleys, amongst 
which were many glaciers, as in Central Europe, but 
with no continuous covering of ice, each glacier being 
a separate unit with its own drainage system and 
catchment area, the valleys boggy and relatively fertile, 
the hillsides bare of snow in summer up to more than 
a thousand feet above sea-level. In the rise of the 
country from the sea it seems to have come up as a 
plain which did not reach the level of perpetual snow, 
so that as it rose it was cut down into valleys in the 
usual way by the agency of water pouring off from 
the plateau over its edge down a frost-split rock-face, 
the valleys gently sloped, the head necessarily steep 
owing to the face of the cliff being stripped off as the 
waterfalls cut their way back. 

Since Nordenskiold's first expedition we have learnt 



48 SPITSBERGEN 

much of the geology and physical features of Spits- 
bergen ; and we hear no more of the poverty of its 
flora and fauna. Now it has become a summer tourist 
resort we are yearly increasing our knowledge of this 
land of no thunderstorms, for centuries the largest 
uninhabited area on the globe, the only considerable 
stretch on which there is no trace of human occupation 
before its discovery by the moderns in 1596, when it 
was found by Barents and his companions. 



CHAPTER III 
NOVAYA ZEMLYA 

Van Heemskerck and Barents reach Ice Haven — The ship in the ice — The 
first crew to winter in the Arctic — The house the Dutch built — The bears 
— The foxes — Intense cold — Twelfth Eve rejoicings — Preparations for 
departure — Death of Barents — The boat voyage — Meeting with Rijp — 
Admiral Jacob Van Heemskerck — Carlsen at Ice Haven — Finds the house 
as described by De Veer — The relics at the Hague — Gardiner finds the 
powder-flask — Gundersen finds the translation of the voyage of Pet and 
Jackman — Second voyage of Hudson — His third voyage — De Vlamingh 
— Russian explorers. 

WE left Barents parting company with Rijp at 
Bear Island, Rijp bound northwards. Barents, 
taking his vessel eastwards, struck Novaya Zemlya at 
Loms Bay, near Cross Bay, and bearing north-east- 
wards reached the Orange Islands and rounded Cape 
Mauritius. Steering south he got down into Ice Haven, 
where at length, says De Veer, " the ice began to drive 
with such force that we were enclosed round about 
therewith, and yet we sought all the means we could to 
get out, but it was all in vain : and at that time we had 
like to have lost three men that were upon the ice to 
make way for the ship, if the ice had held the course it 
went ; but as we drove back again, and the ice also 
whereon our men stood, they being nimble, as the ship 
drove by them, one of them caught hold of the beak 
head, another upon the shrouds, and the third upon the 
mainbrace that hung out behind, and so by great 

e 49 



50 NOVAYA ZEMLYA 

adventure by the hold they took they got into the ship 
again, for which they thanked God with all their 
hearts." The same evening, that of the 26th of August, 
1596, they reached the west of Ice Haven — now known 
as Barents Bay — where they were forced to remain, 
being the first crew on record to spend a winter in the 
Arctic regions and survive to tell the story. 

To begin with, the ice gathered round the ship and 
lifted her bow four feet out of the water. Endeavour- 
ing to right her by clearing the ice away, Barents was 
on his knees measuring the height she had to fall when 
the ice broke with " such a noise and so great a crack 
that they thought verily they were all cast away." As 
she lay upright again they tried in vain with crowbars 
and other tools to break off the piled-up ice, and next 
day in a heavy snow the pressure became such that the 
whole ship was borne up and so squeezed that " all that 
was both about and in it began to crack, so that it 
seemed to burst in a hundred pieces, which was most 
fearful both to see and hear, and made all the hair of 
our heads to rise upright with fear." The grip con- 
tinuing, the vessel was driven up four or five feet and 
the rudder squeezed off, which was replaced by a new 
one, when she sank back into the water a few hours 
afterwards owing to the ice drifting clear for a while. 
Thus matters went on for a little time, the ship being 
alternately lifted and released. 

On the 11th of September, as there was no hope of 
escape, it was decided to build a house wherein to 
spend the winter, and in seeking for a suitable position, 
a mass of driftwood — " trees, roots and all " — was dis- 
covered, " driven ashore from Tartaria, Muscovia, or 



THE HOUSE THE DUTCH BUILT 51 

elsewhere," for there were no trees growing on the 
land, "'wherewith," says De Veer, "we were much 
comforted, being in good hope that God would show 
us some further favour ; for that wood served us not 
only to build our house, but also to burn and serve us 
all the winter long ; otherwise without all doubt we 
had died there miserably with extreme cold." 

The timber was collected and piled up in heaps that 
it might not be hidden under the snow, and two sledges 
were made on which to drag it to the site of the house. 
This was heavy work in which all took part, four of 
them in turn remaining by the ship, there being thir- 
teen men to each party, five to each sledge, with three 
to help and lift the wood behind " to make us draw the 
better and with more ease," and at the end of the first 
week of it the carpenter died, so that only sixteen were 
left. But the wood was brought along day after day, 
some to build with, some for fuel ; and the house was 
built, the frost so hard at times that " as we put a nail 
into our mouths, as carpenters do, there would ice hang 
thereon when we took it out again and made the blood 
follow " ; and when a great fire was made to soften the 
ground, in order that earth might be dug to shovel 
round the house, " it was all lost labour for the earth 
was so hard and frozen so deep that we could not thaw 
it, and it would have cost us too much wood." 

The house was roofed with deals obtained by break- 
ing up the lower deck of the fore part of the ship, and, 
to make it weather-tight, it was covered with a sail on 
which afterwards shingle was spread to keep it from 
being blown off ; and the materials of the cabin yielded 
the wood for the door. Inside, the house was made as 



52 NOVAYA ZEMLYA 

comfortable as possible, as shown in the illustration 
given in De Veer's book in 1598. Low shelves, with 
partitions between, along the side served for sleeping 
places ; a cask on end with a square hole like a window 
in the upper half was frequently used as a bath ; a 
striking clock and a time-glass marked the passing of 
the hours ; the large fire in the centre with its frame 
and trivet and spit and copper pots and other kitchen 
utensils served for warmth and cooking ; and over the 
fire hung a large lamp beneath the chimney, which 
terminated outside in a cask giving it the appearance of 
a crow's nest ashore. 

While the house was building, and as long as the 
sun was above the horizon, there was much trouble 
with the bears, whose daily visits were always produc- 
tive of excitement. On the 26th of October, for 
instance, the day after all the crew first slept in the 
house, when the men had loaded the last sledge and 
stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to the house, 
Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards 
them from behind the ship. The men jumped out of 
the track-ropes, and as fortunately two halberds lay 
upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one and De 
Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, " and as 
they ran one of them fell into a crevice in the ice, 
which grieved us much, for we thought the bears would 
have run unto him to devour him," but they made 
straight after the others instead. " Meantime we and 
the man that fell into the cleft of ice took our advan- 
tage and got into the ship on the other side ; which the 
bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards us that 
had no arms to defend us withal but only the two 



THE BEARS AND THE FOXES 53 

halberds, gave them work to do by throwing billets of 
firewood and other things at them, and every time we 
threw they ran after them as a dog does at a stone that 
has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down 
into the caboose to strike fire and another to fetch 
pikes ; but we could get no fire, and so we had no 
means to shoot " — their firearms being matchlocks. 
"At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we 
struck one of them with a halberd on the snout, where- 
with she gave back when she felt herself hurt and went 
away, which the other two, that were not so large as 
she, perceiving, ran away." 

When the bears had gone and the long night set in, 
their place was taken by the white foxes, many of 
these being caught in traps and furnishing skins for 
clothes and flesh for meat— "not unlike that of the 
rabbit" — that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th 
of November was a great day. A chest of linen was 
opened and divided among the men for shirts, " for 
they had need of them." Next day they washed their 
shirts, having evidently made the new ones in a hurry, 
and, says De Veer, " it was so cold that when we had 
washed and wrung them they presently froze so stiff 
(out of the warm water) that although we laid them 
by a great fire the side that lay next the fire thawed, 
but the other side was hard frozen, so that we should 
sooner have torn them in sunder than have opened 
them, whereby we were forced to put them into the 
boiling water again to thaw them, it was so exceeding 
cold." 

On the 3rd of December and the two following 
days it was so cold that as the men lay in their bunks 



54 NOVAYA ZEMLYA 

they could hear the ice cracking in the sea two miles 
away, and thought that icebergs were breaking on 
each other ; and as they had not so great a fire as 
usual owing to the smoke " it froze so sore within the 
house that the walls and the roof thereof were frozen 
two fingers thick with ice, even in the bunks in which 
we lay. All those three days while we could not go 
out by reason of the foul weather we set up the sand- 
glass of twelve hours, and when it was run out we set 
it up again, still watching it lest we should miss our 
time. For the cold was so great that our clock was 
frozen and would not go, although we hung more 
weight on it than before." 

The snow fell until it was so deep round the house 
that on Christmas Day they heard foxes running over 
the roof ; and the last day of the year was so cold that 
" the fire almost cast no heat, for as we put our feet 
to the fire we burnt our hose before we could feel the 
heat, so that we had work enough to do to patch our 
hose." On the 4th of January, "to know where the 
wind blew we thrust a half pike out of the chimney 
with a little cloth or feather upon it ; but we had to 
look at it immediately the wind caught it, for as soon 
as we thrust it out it was frozen as hard as a piece of 
wood and could not go about or stir with the wind, so 
that we said to one another how fearfully cold it must 
be out of doors." 

Next day, being Twelfth Eve, on which foreigners, 
according to the old practice, hold the festivities now 
customary in England on the following day, the men 
asked Van Heemskerck that they might enjoy them- 
selves, " and so that night we made merry and drank 



PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE 55 

to the three kings. And therewith we had two pounds 
of meal, which we had taken to make paste for the 
cartridges wherewith, of which we now made pancakes 
with oil, and to every man a white biscuit, which we 
sopped in wine. And so supposing that we were in 
our own country and amongst our friends it comforted 
us as well as if we had made a great banquet in our 
own house. And we also distributed tickets, and our 
gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at least 
eight hundred miles long and lieth between two seas." 

In time the sun reappeared — as also the bears — and 
the rigours of the winter relaxing, the men, on the 
9th of May, applied to Barents asking him to speak 
to Van Heemskerck with a view to preparing for 
departure. This, after two other appeals, he did on 
the 15th of May, Van Heemskerck's answer being 
that, if the ship were not free by the end of the month, 
he would get ready to go away in the boats. The two 
boats, or, to be exact, the boat and the herring skute, 
were then repaired and made suitable for a long sea 
voyage, and on the 13th of June were in proper con- 
dition with all their stores ready. Then Van Heems- 
kerck, " seeing that it was open water and a good west 
wind, came back to the house again, and there he 
spake unto Willem Barents (that had been long sick) 
and showed him that he thought it good (seeing it was 
a fit time) to go from thence, and they then resolved 
jointly with the ship's company to take the boat and 
the skute down to the water side, and in the name of 
God to begin our voyage to sail from Nova Zembla. 
Then Willem Barents wrote a letter, which he put 
into a powder flask and hanged it up in the chimney, 



56 NOVAYA ZEMLYA 

showing how we came out of Holland to sail to the 
kingdom of China, and what had happened to us." 
Then Barents was taken down to the shore on a sledge 
and put into one boat, the other sick man, Andriesz, 
being placed in the other, and " with a west-north-west 
wind and an indifferent open water " they set sail on a 
voyage of over fifteen hundred miles among the ice, 
over the ice, and through the sea. 

Barents, though they little suspected it, had but a 
few days to live. As they passed the northernmost 
cape of Novaya Zemlya, " Gerrit," he said to De Veer, 
"if we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again. 
I must see that point once more." They were amongst 
the ice floes again ; soon they had to make fast to one ; 
and then they became shut in and forced to stay there. 
Next day -, their only means of safety lay in hauling 
their boats up on to a floe, taking the sick men out on 
to the ice and putting the clothes and other things 
under them ; but after mending the boats, which had 
been much bruised and crushed, they drifted into a 
little open water and got afloat. On the 20th of June, 
about eight in the morning it became evident that 
Andriesz was nearing his end. " Methinks," said 
Barents, in the other boat, when he heard of it, " with 
me too it will not last long." But still his companions 
did not realise how ill he was, and talked on uncon- 
cernedly. Then he looked at the little chart which 
De Veer had made of the voyage. Putting it down, 
he said, " Gerrit, give me something to drink." And 
no sooner did he drink than he suddenly died. Thus 
passed away their chief guide and only pilot, than 
whom none better ever sailed the northern seas. 



VAN HEEMSKERCICS BOAT VOYAGE 57 

Working their way down the west coast of the long 
island, putting in every now and then in search of birds 
and eggs, constantly in peril from the floating ice and 
the bears, they slowly came south. When passing 
Admiralty Peninsula they had to deal with a danger 
of their own causing. They sighted about two hun- 
dred walruses upon one of the floes. Sailing close to 
them they drove them off, "which," says De Veer, 
"had almost cost us dear, for they, being mighty 
strong sea monsters, swam towards us round about our 
boats with a great noise as if they would have devoured 
us ; but we escaped from them by reason that we had a 
good gale of wind, yet it was not wisely done of us to 
waken sleeping wolves." 

Day by day De Veer tells the story of that adven- 
turous voyage, with its long succession of dangers and 
disappointments, until they reached the mainland and 
sent the Lapland messenger to Kola, who returned 
with a letter from Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, who at 
first they could not believe was the old friend from 
whom they had parted at Bear Island ; and more 
briefly he continues the story until Amsterdam was 
reached on the 1st of November, when the survivors, in 
the same clothes they wore in their winter quarters, 
fur caps and white fox-skins, walked up to the house of 
Pieter Hasselaer to report themselves on arrival and 
received the hearty welcome they deserved. 

Though Van Heemskerck had failed to make the 
passage to the east by way of the north, he was 
perhaps destined for greater fame on the far less 
rigorous route. Like Nelson he went on an Arctic 
expedition that failed, and then secured a place in 



58 NOVAYA ZEMLYA 

history by a sea-fight in Spanish waters, for which his 
countrymen will never forget him. He it was who 
as Vice- Admiral of Holland fought the Spanish fleet 
at Gibraltar in the decisive battle of the 25th of 
April, 1607, in which with his twenty-six vessels he 
attacked Juan Alvarez Davila's twenty ships and ten 
galleons. Early in the struggle he had his leg swept 
off by a cannon shot, but he remained on deck till he 
died, gaining the complete victory which rendered his 
countrymen free from hindrance on the road to the 
Indies round the Cape of Good Hope, of which for 
so many years they made such profitable use. It is 
customary to give all the credit of the Arctic voyage 
to Barents on the ground that his captain was no 
sailor, but Holland knows no better sailor than Jacob 
Van Heemskerck of Gibraltar Bay. 

On the 9th of September, 1871, Captain Elling 
Carlsen, sailing in the Barents Sea, which he had 
entered round Icy Cape, landed in Ice Haven and 
found the house just as De Veer had described it. 
There it had stood in cold storage for 274 years, never 
having been entered by human foot since Van Heems- 
kerck had shut the door. The bunks, the table, the 
bath, the clock, in short everything, all in order, 
as the orderly Dutchmen had left it. Never did a 
voyage book receive such ample verification ; never did 
the description of an island home stand the test better. 

Carlsen, to begin with, knew nothing of De Veer or 
Barents, but he set to work in a conscientious way 
and recorded the results like a true archaeologist. 
" Thursday, 14th," he wrote in his log, " Calm with 
clear sky. Four o'clock in the morning we went 



THE HOUSE REVISITED 59 

ashore further to investigate the wintering place. On 
digging we found again several objects, such as drum- 
sticks, a hilt of a sword, and spears. Altogether it 
seemed that the people had been equipped in a warlike 
manner, but nothing was found which could indicate 
the presence of human remains. On the beach we 
found pieces of wood which had formerly belonged to 
some part of a ship, for which reason I believe that a 
vessel has been wrecked there, the crew of which built 
the house with the materials of the wreck and after- 
wards betook themselves to boats." 

Bringing away a very large number of articles, he 
resumed his voyage and landed at Hammerfest, where 
Mr. E. C. Lister Kay, who happened to be there on a 
yachting trip, bought them, thinking they would be re- 
purchased from him, at the price he gave, for one of our 
own museums. In this he was disappointed, and the 
collection was taken down to his house in Dorsetshire, 
where Count Bylandt, the Dutch Ambassador, happen- 
ing to hear of it, called and bought it for his Govern- 
ment, who placed it at the Hague in a room, the 
exact imitation of that in Novaya Zemlya. 

In July, 1876, Mr. Charles Gardiner, another Eng 
lish yachtsman, when on a cruise in the G-low-ycorm in 
Barents Sea, made a call at the house and brought 
away many other relics, which he presented to the 
Dutch, to be added to those at the Hague ; and 
among them was the powder-flask hung in the 
chimney, containing the paper mentioned by De Veer. 
The previous August Captain Gundersen had been 
there in the Norwegian schooner Regina. In one of 
the chests he found two charts and what he described 



60 NOVAYA ZEMLYA 

as Barents's Journal. The journal proved to be a 
manuscript Dutch translation of the story of the 
voyage in 1580 of Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman. 

In 1608, eleven years after Barents died, Henry 
Hudson, in the Muscovy Company's service, was sent 
to China by the north-east. He sailed on the 22nd of 
April from St. Katharine's, near the Tower of London, 
and on the 3rd of June passed the North Cape on his 
way to Novaya Zemlya, which he reached near Cape 
Brit win twenty-three days afterwards. For some con- 
siderable distance he had skirted the ice pack, vainly 
endeavouring to get through to the northward and 
enter the Kara Sea round the Orange Islands. 

This being impracticable he ranged southwards look- 
ing for a passage through at Kostin Shar, which in the 
Dutch map he had with him was marked as a strait 
and proved to be a bay. Had he been able to go a 
little further north than Cape Britwin he might have 
found that Matyushin Shar, like a rift in the rocks, 
divides the long island in half, though at that early 
season the ice would have probably been blocking it. 
From Kostin or thereabouts he departed for home, his 
voyage failing almost at the outset, owing to his being 
two months too early. 

While off the coast he sent his boat ashore several 
times. "Generally," he says, "all the land of Nova 
Zembla that we have yet seen is to a man's eye a 
pleasant land ; much main high land with no snow on 
it, looking in some places green, and deer feeding 
thereon ; and the hills are partly covered with snow 
and partly bare " — rather a different picture from that 
given by De Veer of what it was like in the winter. 



HUDSON'S THIRD VOYAGE 61 

De Veer, too, had committed himself to the statement 
that there were no deer in the country, but here were 
Hudson's men frequently coming upon their traces, and 
on the 2nd of July reporting that they had seen "a 
herd of white deer, ten in a company," bringing on 
board with them a white lock of deer's hair in proof 
thereof. 

On his return Hudson left the service of the Mus- 
covy Company. He went to Holland, and, early in 
April, 1609, was sent out by the Amsterdam Chamber 
of the Dutch East India Company. On the 5th of 
May he rounded the North Cape, making for Novaya 
Zemlya, and a few days afterwards reached the ice. 
Here, according to Dutch accounts, his men mutinied, 
but what happened during the trouble is not recorded. 
Whether it was really owing to a mutiny, or, as is by 
no means improbable, to secret instructions received at 
his departure, Hudson, on the 14th, made sail for the 
North Cape, passed it on the 19th, when he observed a 
spot on the sun, and then went off westwards to New- 
foundland, making direct apparently for the mouth of 
the river now bearing his name, which was discovered 
by Verrazano in March, 1524, and surveyed by Gomez 
in the following year, and was at the time of Hudson's 
visit British territory. 

The reason for this astonishing change of route was, 
perhaps, that on some of the charts of the period, as on 
Michael Lock's planisphere, this river, the Rio de Gamas 
or Rio Grande of the Spaniards, was made to com- 
municate with what seems to be intended for Lake 
Ontario, and this with the other lakes to the westward 
was widened out into the waterway to the South Sea. 



62 NOVAYA ZEMLYA 

Thus Hudson drops out of our story at his first 
mutiny, for he did not cross the Arctic Circle on his 
fourth voyage, when his second mutiny ended his career 
in the bay that bears his name, which, like the river 
and the strait, was indicated on the maps years before 
he went there. 

In 1664 Willem de Vlamingh, the Dutch navigator, 
or — to be cautious — the namesake of the Dutch navi- 
gator, who thirty-one years afterwards found Dirk 
Hartog's plate and named Swan River in West Aus- 
tralia after the black swans, was in these regions and 
rounded Novaya Zemlya into the Kara Sea, reaching so 
far north that if his recorded latitude be correct he 
must have sighted the Franz Josef archipelago, and, 
contrary to the tendency of Arctic explorers, mistaken 
land for a bank of mist or a group of icebergs. After 
him neither Dutch nor English delay us, the opening 
up of this continuation of the Urals being left to the 
Russians, who found it first and named it — Novaya 
Zemlya meaning simply New Land. 

For years it was left to the Samoyeds and the walrus 
hunters, whose persistent reports of deposits of silver in 
its cliffs led to Loschkin's making his way round it and 
spending two winters on its east coast. In 1768 Ros- 
mysslof, also on silver bent, wintered in Matyushin 
Shar, that wonderful waterway, ninety fathoms deep, 
bounded by high hills and precipitous cliffs, winding so 
sharply that ships have been into it for a dozen miles or 
so and seeing no passage ahead have come out again to 
seek it elsewhere. In 1807 came Pospeloff, with Lud- 
low the mining engineer, to settle the silver question 
once for all, and settle it they did by showing that 



THE RUSSIAN EXPLORERS 63 

everywhere the so-called silver was either talc or mica, 
and naming Silver Bay ironically in memory thereof. 
Fourteen years afterwards Lutke surveyed the west 
coast, continuing during the next three summers ; and 
in 1832 Pachtussoff arrived to undergo in the course of 
his really admirable work the hardships and privations 
of which he died. 



CHAPTER IV 
FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872 — The voyage as planned — The drift of 
the Tegetthoff — The polyglot crew — Discovery of Franz Josef Land — 
Payer's description of an aurora — The sledge journeys — Crown Prince 
Rudolf Land — Cape Fligely reached — Abandonment of the Tegetthoff— 
The boat voyage to Cape Britwin — Leigh Smith's expeditions — Loss of 
the Eira — The retreat in the boats — Jackson in Franz Josef Land— His 
excellent survey work — The Italian expedition under the Duke of the 
Abruzzi — Cagni attempts to reach the Pole and is stopped at 86° 34' — 
The return journey. 

IN 1871 Weyprecht and Payer were out in the 
cutter Isbjorn, pioneering for their intended voyage 
to the eastward, which started next year in the Tegett- 
hoff, the famous Austro-Hungarian attempt of 1872 
which may be described as an unintentional voyage of 
unexpected discovery. The amount of credit due to 
a man who starts to find one thing and lights upon 
another has always been a contentious matter, and 
this expedition afforded an extreme case for such 
speculations. The plan was to go east-north-east, the 
wintering places being undetermined, though they 
might be Cape Chelyuskin, the New Siberian Islands, 
or any land that might be discovered ; and a return 
to Europe through Bering Strait lay among the 
possibilities of the venture, as an endeavour was to 
be made to reach the coast of Siberia in boats and 
penetrate south down one of the large rivers of 

6 4 



THE WONDERFUL DRIFT 65 

Northern Asia. What happened was that during the 
afternoon of the 20th of August, when off the north- 
west coast of Novaya Zemlya in 76° 22' north, 63° 3' 
east, the ship was run into an ice-hole and made fast 
to a floe, and during the night the ice, instead of part- 
ing asunder, closed in and imprisoned her, so that she 
never steamed or sailed again. In the ice and on the 
ice she lay perfectly helpless, drifting with the floe, 
and still in its grip when she was abandoned by her 
crew on the 20th of May, two years afterwards. 

It was a wonderful drift. North-easterly in the 
main to begin with, then north-westerly, then easterly 
to about 73°, then north, then west, in and out and 
roundabout, till they reached much the same longitude 
as they started from and then with a general tendency to 
the northward. Autumn passed away ; the Polar night 
set in; and still they drifted ice-bound — a miscellaneous 
company representative of the polyglot empire ; "on 
board the Tegetthoffr says Payer, " are heard all the 
languages of our country, German, Italian, Slavonic, 
and Hungarian ; Italian is, however, the language in 
which all orders are given," to which we should add 
the Norwegian of Olaf Carlsen, the icemaster. During 
the winter there was enough of occupation and amuse- 
ment, though private theatricals were impossible, as 
they would have had to be given in four languages to 
be intelligible to the audience. 

The short summer came and went, and August had 
almost gone when — it was on the 30th, in 79° 43' — there 
came a surprise. The rays of the sun were fitfully 
breaking through the gloom when suddenly the glid- 
ing mists rolled up like a curtain, revealing in the 



66 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

north-west the outlines of a rocky coast, which in a 
few minutes grew into a radiant Alpine land. The 
shore, however, was unattainable, as a rush over the 
icefield soon showed, but from the edge of the fissure 
that barred any further progress they could make out 
its hills and glaciers and imagine the green pastures of 
its valleys. They called it Kaiser Franz Josef's Land, 
and along it they drifted during September till its out- 
lines faded as the wind began to drive the floe to the 
south. But at the end of the month the direction of 
the floe changed to the north-west, taking the Tegett- 
hqjf up to 79° 58', her highest north, near enough to 
one of the islands for an effort to be made to land. 
Six started from the ship over the grinding, groaning, 
broken walls of ice, and when they were out of sight 
of the ship a mist settled down which cut them off 
from the sight of land and then so closely enwrapped 
them that they could see nothing. Advance they 
found hopeless, and as they returned they lost their 
way and were saved by the sagacity of a dog they had 
with them. All through October the drift continued, 
and it was not until forenoon of the 1st of November, 
two months after sighting the country, that they 
managed to get ashore. This was on Wilczek Island 
in the same longitude as Admiralty Peninsula in 
Novaya Zemlya, and in the same latitude as Mossel 
Bay in Spitsbergen. 

The sun had retired for the winter nine days before, 
and it was by the light of the moon that they first 
explored the unknown country. Little could be done, 
and, as it was much too late for attempting to shift 
from the ship to the shore, the winter had to be spent 



THE AURORA OF THE COMING STORM 67 
on board as the other had been. Through this winter, 
as before, the auroral displays were remarkable, and 
they are excellently described by Payer. Of one of 
them, he says : " It is now eight o'clock at night, the 
hour of the greatest intensity of the northern lights. 
For a moment some bundles of rays only are to be 
seen in the sky. In the south a faint, scarcely observ- 
able, band lies close to the horizon. All at once it 
rises rapidly and spreads east and west. The waves 
of light begin to dart and shoot ; some rays mount 
towards the zenith. For a short time it remains 
stationary, then suddenly springs to life. The waves 
of light drive violently from east to west ; the edges 
assume a deep red and green colour and dance up and 
down. The rays shoot up more rapidly ; they become 
shorter ; all rise together and approach nearer and 
nearer to the magnetic Pole. It looks as if there were 
a race among the rays, and that each aspired to reach 
the Pole first. And now the point is reached, and 
they shoot out on every side, to the north and the 
south, to the east and the west. Do the rays shoot 
from above downwards, or from below upwards ? Who 
can distinguish ? From the centre issues a sea of 
flames. Is that sea red, white, or green ? Who can 
say ? — it is all three colours at the same moment. The 
rays reach almost to the horizon ; the whole sky is in 
flames. Nature displays before us such an exhibition 
of fireworks as transcends the powers of imagination 
to conceive. Involuntarily we listen ; such a spectacle 
must, we think, be accompanied with sound. But 
unbroken stillness prevails, not the least sound strikes 
on the ear. Once more it becomes clear over the ice, 



68 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

and the whole phenomenon has disappeared with the 
same inconceivable rapidity with which it came, and 
gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over 
everything. This was the aurora of the coming storm 
— the aurora in its fullest splendour." 

Sledging was begun in March, Hall Island being first 
visited, and, on the 26th, Payer, with six men, started 
on his main journey up Austria Sound, reaching 
Hohenlohe Island, where three men were left, and then 
proceeding further north to Crown Prince Rudolf 
Land. Off the southern promontory of this were 
innumerable icebergs, up to two hundred feet in height, 
cracking and snapping in the sunshine. The Midden- 
dorf Glacier, with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards 
the north-west ; layers of snow and rents in the sea-ice, 
caused by icebergs falling in, filled the intervening 
space. Into these fissures Payer and his men were 
continually falling, drenching their canvas boots and 
clothes with sea-water. One of the men was sent on 
ahead to find a path by which the glacier might be 
climbed, and discovering a fairly open road the summit 
was gained across many crevasses bridged with snow, 
three of those at the lower part needing but a slight 
movement to detach the severed portions and form 
them into bergs. 

While resting on the glacier looking down on the 
semicircular terminal precipice and the gleaming host 
of bergs which filled the indentations of the coast, one 
of the men reported that his foot was swollen and 
ulcerated, and he had to be sent back to Hohenlohe 
Island. Just as the others were setting off, the snow 
gave way beneath the sledge, and down fell Zaninovich, 



DOWN THE CREVASSE 69 

the dogs and the sledge, while Payer was dragged back- 
wards by the rope. The fall was arrested at a depth of 
thirty feet by the sledge sticking fast between the sides 
of the crevasse. Payer, on his face, the rope attaching 
him to the sledge tightly strained and cutting into the 
snow, shouted that he would sever the rope, but 
Zaninovich implored him not to do so as the sledge 
would then turn over and he would be killed ; hearing, 
however, from Orel, that the man was lying on a ledge 
of snow with precipices all around him and that the 
dogs were still fast to the traces, Payer cut the rope, 
and the sledge made a short turn and stuck fast again. 
Then, telling Zaninovich that he must contrive to keep 
himself from freezing for four hours, Payer and Orel 
set off to run the six miles back to Hohenlohe Island. 
Payer, as he went on ahead, threw off his bird-skin 
clothes, his boots and his gloves, and ran in his stock- 
ings through the snow. In an hour he reached the 
camp, and leaving it unattended they all set off to the 
rescue with a rope and a pole. Picking up his clothes 
on the way, Payer and his men reached the crevasse ; 
one of the party was let down by the rope, and finally 
Zaninovich and the sledge and dogs were brought 
from their dangerous position four hours and a half 
after their fall. 

The advance was then resumed along the west coast 
of Crown Prince Rudolf Land round the imposing 
headland they named Cape Auk— the rocky cliffs being 
covered with little auks and other seabirds, enormous 
flocks flying up and filling the air, the whole region 
seeming to be alive with their incessant whirring— and 
following the line of Teplitz Bay, Payer mounted one 



70 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

of the bergs detached from a glacier and saw open 
water with ice bounding it on the horizon. As the 
sheet over which their course lay became thinner, and 
threatened to give way beneath them, they had to open 
up a track among the hummocks by pick and shovel ; 
and when this failed they had to unload the sledge and 
carry the things separately. At Cape Saulen they 
camped for the night in the fissure of a glacier into 
which they had to drag their baggage by a long rope ; 
and next day — the 12th of April, 1874 — they went on 
again and reached Cape Fligely, in 81° 50' 43", their 
farthest north. 

With great difficulty they made their way back to 
the ship, a long, toilsome journey through snow and 
sludge, with open water in places where there had been 
ice, which made them fear the Tegetthoff might have 
drifted away again. The imminent danger of starva- 
tion was ended by their reaching their depot on Schonau 
Island, whence Payer went on for the remaining twenty- 
five miles alone with the dog-sledge, the two dogs 
giving much trouble until they struck the old sledge 
track almost obliterated by snow, when they raised 
their heads, stuck their tails in the air, and broke into a 
run. Halting on an iceberg for a meal, the berg cap- 
sized, and in a moment Payer was begirt by fissures, 
water-pools, and rolling blocks of ice, from which he 
managed to escape. When he turned into the narrow 
passage between Salm and Wilczek Islands, Orgel 
Cape, visible at a great distance, was the only dark spot 
on the scene. At once the dogs made for it, and about 
midnight he arrived there. With an anxious heart he 
began the ascent ; a barren stony plateau confronted 



PAYER'S RETURN 71 

him ; with every advancing step, made with increasing 
difficulty, the land gradually disappeared and the 
horizon of the frozen sea expanded before him ; no ship 
was to be seen, no trace of man for thousands of miles 
except a cairn with the fragments of a flag fluttering in 
the wind, and a grave half covered with snow. Still 
he climbed, and suddenly three masts emerged. He 
had found the ship ; there she lay about three miles off, 
appearing on the frozen ocean no bigger than a fly, the 
icebergs and drifts around her having hidden her 
amongst them. He held the heads of the dogs to- 
wards her and pointed with his arm to where she lay ; 
and they saw her, and away they went, to find all but 
the watch asleep. 

After another sledge journey north-westwards to 
Mount Brunn, from which Richtofen Peak was sighted, 
preparations were made for abandoning the ship and 
returning home. The three boats left the Tegetthoff 
on the 20th of May, but so slow was the progress over 
the difficult route that at the end of every day in the 
first week it was possible for Payer to go back to her 
on the dog-sledge to replenish the stores which had 
been consumed ; and at the end of two months of in- 
describable effort the distance between the boats and 
the ship was not more than eight statute miles. The 
heights of Wilczek Land were still distinctly visible 
and its lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in 
the ever-growing daylight. All things appeared to 
promise that after a long struggle with the ice there 
remained for the expedition but a despairing return to 
the ship and a third winter there with the frozen ocean 
for their grave. 



72 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

In the middle of July the fissures which had been 
opening out around them became wider and longer, 
progress reaching some four miles a day ; then the 
north wind blew and the icefield commenced to drift 
to the south, to drift again north-east when the wind 
changed. Backwards and forwards, amid every variety 
of weather, including heavy rain, the pack ice moved 
until it changed to drift ice, and, on the 15th of August, 
the much -tried company got afloat at last in open 
water and laid their course for Novaya Zemlya, where 
they fell in with two Russian schooners off Cape 
Brit win. 

The next to visit Franz Josef Land was Leigh Smith, 
whom we met with in the Spitsbergen seas. Building 
the Eira especially for Arctic service, he started in 
1880, the year she was launched, on a cruise to Green- 
land and thence eastwards, which took him to the west 
and north-west of the ground gone over by the Aus- 
trians. He surveyed the whole coast from 42° east to 
the most westerly point seen by Payer, and sorted it 
out into several islands, but found no trace of the 
Tegetthoff, for where she had been left was open water. 
Encouraged by the success of his visit, in which the 
observations and collections were unusually good, he 
returned in the Eira the following year to meet with 
much more unfavourable ice conditions. Finding it 
impossible to get westward of Barents Hook the Eira 
was, on the 15th of August, made fast to the land floe 
off Cape Flora, and six days afterwards she was nipped 
and stove by the ice and slowly sank in eleven fathoms 
of water. As she settled down the steam winch was 
set to work, and by its means half a dozen casks of 



LEIGH SMITH AT CAPE FLORA 73 

flour and about three hundredweight of bread were 
saved from the main hold ; and when nothing more 
could be got from the lower deck the stores in the 
after cabin were attacked, and within the two hours 
from the discovery of the leak to the disappearance of 
the ship, all these provisions and the boats and clothes 
were safe on the ice ; and the sails were cut away, and 
with them and some oars a tent was erected in which 
all the company, twenty-five in number, took shelter. 

A move was made next day to the land. On Cape 
Flora a house was built mainly of earth and stones, 
covered with sails, in which the winter was passed. 
Fortunately the district abounds with bears and wal- 
ruses, and the meat from these, boiled with vegetables, 
and served out three times a day into twenty-five 
plates made out of old provision tins, proved the right 
sort of fare to keep every one in excellent health. 
Thanks in a great measure to Bob, the retriever, the 
larder was kept full ; but there being a shortness of 
coal, recourse for fuel had to be made to rope and 
blubber, so that no one could mistake the time when the 
cooking was on. In fact, the odour and the smoke were 
of great interest to the bears, who lingered about in- 
tending to pay surprise visits, and the dog had always 
to be sent in front of those leaving the house. One 
day when out on his own account, Bob discovered a 
school of walruses on the ice and reported the matter 
in his own fashion, whereupon several of these were 
shot, and after an exciting chase five were secured. In 
January he found another school, of which three were 
bagged and stowed alongside the house, although the 
thermometer stood at forty below zero. On another 



74 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

occasion he managed to tempt a bear up to the front 
door, where it was promptly tumbled over, to his 
evident satisfaction. 

During the winter the party killed twenty-nine wal- 
ruses and three dozen bears. Once, when only a fort- 
night's meat was left, and things began to look serious, 
no less than eight bears were killed in two weeks. At 
the end of April the birds returned, and in June the ice 
was cleared away by a gale and walruses were seen 
swimming on the water in hundreds. Never did a 
wintering party meet with better fortune, and never 
was one better managed. 

On the 21st of June they started from Cape Flora 
in four boats, six men each in three of them, seven in 
the other, to reach the open sea, leaving in the house 
six bottles of champagne in case any person might 
look in, besides a few other things, and blocking up 
the door to keep out the bears. Before the boats 
reached the ice they crossed eighty miles of water, and 
then six weeks' hard labour began, zigzagging through 
channels, hauling over hummocky floes, sailing through 
pools, halting for days on a floe with no water in sight, 
but never doubting that a clearance would come. On 
leaving the ice they steered for Novaya Zemlya, at first 
in a gentle breeze, which rapidly increased to a gale in 
a heavy thunderstorm, so that the boats, with their 
sails of tablecloth and shirt-tail, had to be carefully 
handled as they scudded before it at such a pace that 
within twenty-four hours of leaving the ice they were 
drawn up all safe on the beach at the entrance of 
Matyushin Shar. Next morning the Dutch exploring 
schooner, Willem Barents, was descried coming out of 



JACKSON'S SURVEY 75 

the strait, and before the schooner was reached by the 
boats there came round the point the Hope, which 
Sir Allen Young, of the Pandora, had brought out as 
a rescue ship for them. They had been driven by the 
gale to the very spot on the very day they could be 
best relieved. 

From the reports of Weyprecht and Payer it 
appeared that the north-east of Franz Josef Land 
would make an excellent base for a start for the North 
Pole, and Leigh Smith was led to the same view by 
his visit to Alexandra Land, but along the south he 
had made so many changes in Payer's map that a 
further examination of the region was evidently desir- 
able. To effect this by a careful survey of the coasts, 
Frederick G. Jackson landed near Cape Flora on the 
7th of September, 1894, and began his residence of a 
thousand days. Setting to work in a businesslike way, 
and recording his progress in similar style, he disin- 
tegrated the land masses into a group of some fifty size- 
able islands, through which run two main waterways, 
his British Channel and Payer's Austria Sound, both 
opening out northwards into Queen Victoria Sea ; 
Crown. Prince Rudolf Land being a large island at 
the northern entrance of Austria Sound, Wilczek Land 
at its southern entrance being about twice its size. 
He defined the coast -lines for over eighty miles of 
latitude, extending to fifteen degrees of longitude as 
far west as the most westerly headland, Cape Mary 
Harmsworth, and so cutting up Franz Josef Land that 
not even an island now bears the name, which is used 
only as that of the archipelago. Never in Arctic 
exploration was work rendered more evident than in 



76 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

the difference between the map as Jackson found it 
and as he left it. 

The Windward, with the expedition on board, 
sighted the land on the 25th of August, but, stopped 
by intervening ice, could not reach the coast until a 
fortnight afterwards, the landing taking place at Cape 
Flora, close to Leigh Smith's house, which was found 
with the roof off*. Not far away Jackson established 
his headquarters, quite a little settlement, though the 
expedition consisted of only eight men. Just as Leigh 
Smith found no remains of the Tegetthoff, so Jackson 
found no trace of the Eira. It had been intended 
that the Windward should return after putting the 
party ashore, but, shut in by the ice, she had to re- 
main during the first winter, getting away safely next 
year, to return in 1898 and take away Nansen, who, as 
we shall see further on, ended his long land journey 
here. On her 1897 trip she departed with the members 
of the expedition all well, so that neither ship nor man 
was lost, the only serious casualties being among the 
dogs and the Russian ponies which did such excellent 
service. 

Two years afterwards, in July, 1899, the deserted 
settlement was visited by the Duke of the Abruzzi, 
in his expedition in the Stella Polare, on his way to 
the north, a few days before he met with his short 
imprisonment in the ice in British Channel. His was 
a successful run all the same, for he was in 82° 4/, to 
the northward of Crown Prince Rudolf Land, or, as 
it is now called, Prince Rudolf Island, twenty-seven 
days out from Archangel. Passing Cape Fligely — the 
latitude of which was afterwards found to be sixteen 



CAGNI STARTS NORTHWARD 77 

miles south of the 82° 5' Payer had made it — and 
rounding Cape Auk, the /Stella Polar e went into 
winter quarters in Teplitz Bay, whence Captain 
Umberto Cagni started, on the 11th of March, 1900, 
for his forty-five days' march towards the North Pole. 

It was a great disappointment to the Duke to have 
to stay with the ship instead of leading this well- 
equipped and thoroughly organised sledge attempt, 
but owing to an accident two of his fingers had been 
so severely frost-bitten that they had to be amputated, 
and, unless a second winter was to be spent in the ice, 
a start was imperative before he could recover from 
the operation. Thus all he could do was to assist at 
the first encounter of the sledges with the pressure 
ridges and wish Cagni the longest possible journey and 
a safe return. There was every appearance of the 
journey being a difficult one, for on the first day a 
stoppage had to be made every quarter of a mile or 
thereabouts for a road to be cut through the ridges 
with ice-axes, while next day a new hindrance was 
experienced in the young ice in the channels being too 
thin at times to support the sledges, one of which began 
to sink and was only extricated with difficulty, so that 
only one sledge could be allowed on such ice at a time. 

On the 13th of March the auxiliary sledge was sent 
back, thus reducing the caravan to a dozen sledges and 
ninety-eight dogs, which in a long line passed over 
a vast plain covered with great rugged blocks of ice, 
as though they had been thrown down confusedly by 
a giant's hand to bar the way. The wind was north- 
east, the cold intense, fifty below zero, not to be 
particular to a degree or so, for, as Cagni says, when 



78 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

the temperature is below twenty-two, and it is im- 
possible to use a screen or a magnifying glass, the 
mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an un- 
mounted thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees, 
and when the temperature is below fifty-eight an 
approach makes a difference of three or four degrees. 
So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as 
wood, and the men got into them after much effort, 
not to sleep but to feel their teeth chattering for hours, 
the only warm parts of the body being the feet clad in 
long woollen stockings. " There are patches of ice on 
our knees," says Cagni, " like horses' knee-caps, and we 
have others, both large and small, sometimes thick 
enough to be scraped off with a knife, everywhere, but 
especially on our cheeks and backs and in all places 
where the perspiration has oozed through." 

Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed 
somewhat out of place. When a suitable site was 
chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near it the 
three other sledges of the third detachment were 
drawn up at a distance of about ten feet from each 
other. The sledges of the second detachment as they 
came up formed a second line, those of the third form- 
ing another. The tents were pitched between two 
sledges, generally those in the centre, the guy ropes 
being fastened to the sledge runners, those at the ends 
to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were 
then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the 
boats, and everything arranged under the tent. The 
thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs were tethered, 
when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges 
away from the tents. While the men were taking 



THE DIFFICULT ROAD 79 

the dogs out of the harness, which always remained 
attached to the traces on the sledges, and tethering 
them to the steel ropes, one of the guides took a 
chosen victim to some distance from the camp, and 
felled it with a blow from an ice-axe, then opened it, 
skinned it quickly, divided it up into ten shares and 
distributed these to the dogs, already destined to 
undergo the same fate, these being the weakest and 
most ailing — in short, this was the elimination of the 
unfit. 

On the 22nd of March the first detachment began 
its return journey ; it consisted of Lieutenant Querini 
and two men, and it was never heard of again. The 
way northwards continued extremely difficult, with 
channels and ridges plentiful and the road so rough 
that the sledges began to break up in the bows and 
runners, some at last so badly that their fragments had 
to be used to repair the others with. On the 31st the 
second detachment was sent back, consisting of the 
doctor and two men, and it got safely to the ship. The 
third detachment, consisting of Cagni with two Cour- 
mayeur guides — Petigax and Fenoillet — and a sailor, 
Canepa, all four Italians, made the final effort. That 
day they were on level ice and covered seventeen miles, 
but at night a snowstorm came on and there was 
trouble. After a rest they pressed forward in rapid 
marches amid bad weather over the drifting fields. On 
the 12th of April while raising camp a strong pressure 
piled up within a hundred yards of them a wall from 
thirty-six to forty-five feet high, the highest ridge they 
had seen. Enormous blocks rolled down towards them 
with loud crashes after being thrown up by other 



80 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

blocks, lifted to the brow of the ridge and rolled ovei 
in their turn, raising a cloud of ice-dust in their fal 
the loud continual creaking of the pressure drowned b] 
the booming of the cascade which shook the ice foi 
yards around. These ridges were constantly forming, 
most of them remaining, some of them subsiding as the 
edges drifted apart, and the channels thus caused were 
even more difficult to deal with, some having to be 
passed over thin ice, some ferried over on small floes. 
But they did not cross the track all along, and during 
the last few days the travelling was easy. 

On the 24th of April the long journey reached its 
end. " At ten minutes past twelve," says Cagni, " we 
are on our way to the north. The ice is like that of 
yesterday, level and smooth, and, later on, undulating. 
At first the dogs are not very willing to pull, but en- 
couraged by our shouts and a few strokes, they advance 
at a rapid pace, which they keep up during the whole 
march. At five we meet with a large pressure ridge, 
which almost surprises us, as it seems to us a century 
since we have seen any ; we lost a quarter of an hour in 
preparing a passage through and crossing it. Beyond 
it the aspect of the ice changes ; the undulations are 
more strongly marked, and large blocks and small 
ridges indicate recent pressure, but luckily they do not 
stop us or obstruct our way. Soon after six we come 
upon a large channel running from east to west ; we 
must stop. Beyond the channel is a vast expanse of 
new ice, much broken up and traversed by many other 
channels. Even if I were not prevented from doing 
so, I would now think twice before risking myself in 
the midst of them. If we did push forward on that 



THE ITALIANS 1 FARTHEST NORTH 81 

ice, even for half a day, we would gain very few miles 
and besides run the risk of losing a sledge. The dogs 
are very tired, and we too feel the effects of yesterday's 
strain. I therefore consider that it is more prudent to 
stop here, and both the guides are of the same opinion. 
The sun is unclouded. I bring out the sextant and 
take altitudes of the sun to calculate the longitude 
(65° 19' 45" E.) while Fenoillet and Canepa put the 
sledges in order and pitch the tent in a sort of small 
amphitheatre of hillocks which shelter us from the 
north wind. On that farthest to the north, which is 
almost touched by the water of the channel, we plant 
the staff from which our flag waves. The air is very 
clear ; between the north-east and the north-west there 
stand out distinctly, some sharply pointed, others 
rounded, dark or blue and white, often with strange 
shapes, the innumerable pinnacles of the great blocks of 
ice raised up by the pressure. Farther away again on 
the bright horizon in a chain from east to west is a 
great azure wall which from afar seems insurmount- 
able." The latitude was 86° 34'. 

The outward journey took forty-five days ; the home- 
ward took sixty, and proved a perilous adventure 
owing to the drift of the pack to the westward and its 
breaking up as the weather became warmer and the 
southern boundary was approached. At first there 
was good promise. The dogs knew they were going 
back, and followed the outward track so fast that the 
men, failing to keep up with them, for the first time 
took a seat on the sledges and were drawn along at 
four miles an hour. Progress was rapid for a few days 
owing to there being now only four sledges and, in a 



82 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 

considerable degree, to the intelligence of the leading 
dog, Messicano. Ever since leaving Teplitz Bay this 
small white dog, with the intelligent eyes and bushy 
legs, had held the first place in the leading sledge 
because he followed the man at the head of the convoy 
better than the others, and now when the guide was 
behind or on the sledge, Messicano took the track at 
a gallop with his nose on the snow, losing the way now 
and then, but finding it again, though to the men it 
was often invisible. The time came, however, when 
the old track had to be left for a better course to the 
ship, and then difficulties of every sort had to be over- 
come, the delays being such that dog after dog had to 
be killed to keep away starvation, and it was only with 
seven of them and two sledges that Prince Rudolf 
Island was reached from the westward on the 23rd of 
June. " The snow is wet, which is very bad for 
dragging the sledges, as it sticks to the runners and 
tires our dogs exceedingly ; we have still seven, but 
only three that really pull (three to each sledge), for 
Messicano is at the last extremity and can hardly hold 
up the trace." Toiling on thus through the fog to Cape 
Brorok a noise was heard in the distance like the 
creaking caused by pressure among ice floes, and when 
the fog lifted it was found that the sound was that of 
the seabirds on the cliffs. Out on the icefield no signs 
of life had been met with beyond the traces of a bear, 
a seal that vanished, and a walrus that popped up 
through thin ice to send Fenoillet scuttling off on his 
hands and knees. 

Meanwhile the ship, which had been seriously 
damaged, had been made seaworthy. Liberated from 



THE RETURN VOYAGE 83 

her berth by mines of gunpowder and guncotton, 
she sailed from Teplitz Bay on the 16th of August, 
and, after further unpleasant experiences in the ice, 
reached Cape Flora, where a call was made at Jack- 
son's house in the vain hope of news of Querini ; and 
thence, after more ice complications, Captain Evensen 
took her to Hammerfest. Though, as in all Arctic 
endeavour, conditions were against them, the employ- 
ment of a Norwegian crew for the ship and an Italian 
crew for the sledges had, under excellent management, 
worked thoroughly well. 



CHAPTER V 
CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

Chelyuskin reaches the cape — The Laptefs— Deschnefs voyage through 
Bering Strait — Nordenskiold's voyages to the Yenesei — The Siberian 
tundra — The voyage of the Vega — Nordenskiold rounds Cape Chelyuskin 
— Endeavour to reach the Siberian Islands — LiakhofPs discovery— The 
Vega passes the Cape North of Captain Cook — Frozen in within six miles 
of Cape Serdze Kamen — Completes the North-east Passage — Nansen's 
voyage — The Fram — Her drift in the ice — Nansen and Johansen start 
for the Pole — They reach 86° 13' 6" — Their journey to Frederick Jackson 
Island — The meeting with Jackson — Sverdrup's voyage to Spitsbergen. 

THE tundras and shores of Siberia abound with 
obstacles to exploration, and yet a third of the 
threshold of the Polar regions has been surveyed along 
their line. No spot remains unvisited on the northern 
margin of the Asiatic mainland, the northernmost 
point of which is Cape Chelyuskin in 77° 36 '8', so that 
the Arctic Circle sweeps inland for 770 miles to the 
south of it — in other words the cape is practically half- 
way between the Circle and the Pole. 

It was chiefly from the land that the northern coast- 
line was surveyed by the Russians, whose Arctic work 
has been immense and thorough, though not marked by 
any striking discoveries. Cape Chelyuskin was first 
reached, in May, 1742, by the explorer whose name it 
bears, after a sledge journey from the Chatanga, he 
being at the time second in command to Khariton 
Laptef, whose first expedition in 1739 ended in the Iosj 

8 4 



CAPE CHELYUSKIN 




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THE EXPLORERS OF NORTHERN SIBERIA 85 
of his ship three hundred miles from his winter quar- 
ters, to which he had to travel on foot, losing twelve 
men by cold and exhaustion on the way. Within the 
preceding four years the survey of the coast west of it 
had been completed in four stages — from Archangel to 
Yalmal (that is Land's End) ; from Yalmal to the Obi ; 
from the Obi to the Yenesei ; from the Yenesei to 
Cape Sterlegof. In 1735 Pronchistschef, from the 
Lena, failed to round Cape Chelyuskin from the east, 
and returned to the Olenek to die but two days before 
his young wife, who was his companion on his perilous 
voyage. Two years afterwards Dmitri Laptef began 
his explorations east of the Lena which took him to 
Cape Baranoff, thus joining up to the discoveries of 
the sable -hunters made a century before, including 
those of Deschnef, who, in 1648, sailed from the 
Kolyma to Kamchatka and went through Bering 
Strait more than thirty years before Bering was born. 
Thus the route of the North-east Passage was known, 
although no man had travelled the whole way either 
by land or sea, before the task was undertaken by 
Nordenskiold. 

To begin with, Nordenskiold made two voyages to 
the Yenesei. In the first voyage he left Tromsoe in the 
Proeven on the 14th of June, 1875, and reached what 
he named Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the 
Yenesei on the 15th of August. Sending back the 
Proeven, which returned through Matyushin Shar, he, 
with Lundstrom the botanist and Stuxberg the zoolo- 
gist, and three walrus-hunters, embarked in a boat they 
had brought out with them and proceeded up the 
estuary into the river ; and during the first six hundred 



86 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

miles they landed only twice. On the last day of the 
month they caught up a steamer on which they became 
passengers. 

" We were yet," says Nordenskiold, " far to the 
north of the Arctic Circle, and as many perhaps 
imagine that the little-known region we were now 
travelling through, the Siberian tundra, is a desert 
wilderness covered either by ice and snow, or by an 
exceedingly scanty moss vegetation, it perhaps may not 
be out of place to say that this is by no means the 
case. On the contrary, we saw snow during our 
journey up the Yenesei only at one place, in a deep 
valley cleft some fathoms in breadth, and the vegeta- 
tion, especially on the islands which are overflowed 
during the spring floods, is distinguished by a luxuri- 
ance to which I have seldom seen anything compar- 
able. Already had the fertility of the soil and the 
immeasurable extent and richness in grass of the pas- 
tures drawn forth from one of our walrus-hunters, a 
middle-aged man who is owner of a little patch of 
ground among the fells of Northern Norway, a cry of 
envy at the splendid land our Lord had given the 
Russian, and of astonishment that no creature pas- 
tured, no scythe mowed, the grass. Daily and hourly 
we heard the same cry repeated, and even in louder 
tones, when some weeks after we came to the grand 
old forests between Yeneseisk and Turuchansk, or to 
the nearly uninhabited plains on the other side of 
Krasnoyarsk covered with deep black earth, equal with- 
out doubt in fertility to the best parts of Scania, and in 
extent surpassing the whole Scandinavian peninsula. 
This judgment formed on the spot by a genuine though 



THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE 87 

illiterate agriculturist is not without interest in forming 
an idea of the future importance of Siberia." 

In fact, Siberia is particularly rich in mineral and 
agricultural wealth, and this voyage, which opened up 
the route to and from Europe by the natural outlets 
to the north, was of such commercial promise that 
the explorer received for it the special thanks of the 
Russian Government. As, however, there were people 
who looked upon it as an exceptional voyage in an ex- 
ceptional year, Nordenskiold next season took another 
voyage to the river, this time in the Ymer, carrying 
the first instalment of merchandise so as to begin the 
trade ; and he was followed in a few weeks by Captain 
Joseph Wiggins, in the Thames, whose subsequent 
voyages made the northern route well known. 

Assured by the experience gained in these voyages 
that the North-east Passage was possible to a steam 
vessel of moderate size, Nordenskiold, in 1878, was 
enabled to fit out the Vega, and sailed from Tromsoe 
on the 31st of July. Three other vessels accompanied 
her, two bound for the Yenesei, one for the Lena, the 
rendezvous being Khabarova. All went well. On the 
9th of August the Fraser and Express proceeded up 
the Yenesei to discharge their cargoes and return to 
Europe in safety ; next day the Vega and Lena left 
for the eastward, and, after some risky navigation 
among islands and through fog, lay for four days in 
Actinia Haven, between Taimyr Island and the main- 
land, vainly waiting for clear weather. Pushing on 
through fitful fog they sighted a promontory in the 
north-east gleaming in the sunshine, and rounding its 
western horn anchored in a bay open to the north and 



88 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

free from ice at the extremity of Cape Chelyuskin. 
With the rounding of the most northerly point of the 
Old World the first object of the expedition had been 
attained. The salute fired in honour of the event 
having frightened away the only polar bear who had 
stood watching the ship from the western horn, some 
of the party landed, the botanists to discover that 
all the plants of the peninsula had apparently been 
stopped on the outermost promontory when trying to 
migrate further north. The flora was not extensive — 
a few luxuriant lichens and twenty-three flowering 
plants, eight of them saxifrages, most of them with a 
tendency to form semi-globular tufts ; the fauna con- 
sisted of the bear, a few seals, a walrus, two shoals of 
white whales, some ducks and geese, and a number of 
sandpipers. Not so long a list as was obtained at 
other landings, but by no means a bad one for the 
half-way house to the Pole. 

After passing the cape the course was laid for the 
New Siberian Islands, but ice prevented progress 
in their direction beyond 77° 45', the highest north of 
the voyage, and the ship had to work her way out by 
the route she went in, thus losing a day, which had 
serious consequences, though it proved the correctness 
of Nordenskiold's theory that the water delivered by 
the Siberian rivers is, for a few months, of sufficiently 
high temperature to give a clear passage to vessels 
content to keep near the coast. On reaching the 
mouth of the Lena the ships parted company, Captain 
Johannsen taking the smaller steamer up the river as 
intended and bringing the news of the rounding of 
Cape Chelyuskin and the promise of the North-east 



LIAKHOFFS DISCOVERY 89 

Passage being accomplished in one season, which was 
not destined to be fulfilled. 

Another attempt was then made by the Vega to 
reach the islands to the north, but after sighting the 
two most westerly of the group the shallow sea was 
too crowded with rotten ice, and an idea of landing 
on Liakhoff Island having to be given up for the 
same reason, the course was altered so as to take the 
ship round Svjatoi Nos (the Holy Cape), where in 
April, 1770, Liakhoff had noticed the mighty crowd 
of reindeer going south. Justly considering they must 
have come over the ice from some northern land, he 
went back on their tracks in a dog-sledge, discovering 
two of the most southerly islands, and obtaining from 
Catherine the Second as a reward the monopoly of hunt- 
ing the foxes and collecting the ivory there from the 
fossil mammoths he found in abundance. 

Forced to keep to the channel along the coast, which 
daily became narrower, the Vega reached Cape Che- 
lagskoi, and when off this promontory Nordenskiold 
saw the first natives during his voyage. Two boats 
built of skin almost exactly similar to the oomiaks, or 
women's boats, used by the Eskimos, came out to the 
ship, the men, women, and children in them intimating 
by shouts and gestures that they wished to come on 
board. The Vega was brought-to that they might do 
so, but as none of the Chukches could speak Russian 
and none of the Swedes knew Chukche, the interview 
was not so satisfactory as expected, though the uni- 
versal language of pantomime with presents ensured a 
favourable termination. 

On the 12th of September the Vega passed Irkaipii, 



90 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

the Cape North of Captain Cook, and by rounding it 
Nordenskiold joined up with the westernmost limit of 
the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook 
tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned 
back by fog and snow, and thinking it was " not con- 
sistent with prudence to make any further attempts to 
find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any direc- 
tion, so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed 
for Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt 
the ensuing summer came to nought owing to his 
death. 

On the 28th of September the Vegas progress for 
the year was arrested by her being frozen in for the 
winter on the eastern side of Kolyuchin Bay in the 
northernmost part of Bering Strait, only six miles of 
ice barring the way round Cape Serdze Kamen into the 
open sea. During her detention of two hundred and 
sixty-four days the scientific investigations of many 
kinds that were undertaken were of lasting importance, 
as they had been throughout, and when she was re- 
leased on the 18th of July, 1879, to come home by way 
of Yokohama, the collections and records she brought 
with her were simply enormous. No better work with 
greater results was done by any Arctic expedition 
than during this successful voyage, which was too well 
managed to have much adventure. For it Nordens- 
kiold very justly claimed the reward of twenty-five 
thousand guilders offered in 1596 by the States-General 
of Holland, the endeavour to win which sent out Van 
Heemskerck, Barents, and Rijp. 

We have seen how the Dutchmen built their house 
at Ice Haven mainly of the driftwood from the Siberian 











mMM: 



mm 




yHHPW 
1 'I* 



ADOLF ERIK N0RDE> T SK10LD 



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NANSEN'S VOYAGE 91 

rivers. Similar wood from probably the same source is 
found on the shores of Greenland and of almost all the 
northerly islands of the Arctic Ocean. Further, the 
Greenland flora includes a series of Siberian plants 
apparently from seeds drifted there by some current. 
Not only do trees and seeds travel by water from Asia 
westward to America ; at Godthaab, for instance, on 
the western coast of Greenland, there was found a 
throwing-stick of a shape and ornamentation used only 
by the Alaskan Eskimos ; and three years after the 
foundering of the Jeannette to the north of the New 
Siberian Islands there were found on the south-west 
coast of Greenland a number of articles in the drift-ice 
that must have come from the sunken vessel. For 
these and other reasons it seemed clear to Fridtjof 
Nansen that a current flowed at some point between 
the Pole and Franz Josef Land from the Siberian 
Arctic Sea to the Greenland coast, and so he set to 
work to organise his daring expedition to strike this 
current well to the eastward, trusting to its mercies to 
take him to or near the Pole. 

In 1893, when the From rounded Cape Chelyuskin, 
Nansen had found the Kara Sea almost as open as 
Nordenskiold had done, but had met with more diffi- 
culties among the islands off the Taimyr Peninsula. 
A famous vessel, the Fram, the first of her kind, built 
specially for the ice to take her where it listed in the 
hope that she would drift to discovery like the Tegett- 
hoff, and not to disaster like the Jeannette. The 
general idea was Nansen's, the carrying out of the 
idea was Colin Archer's. As Nansen says : " We must 
gratefully recognise that the success of the expedition 



92 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

was in no small degree due to this man." Plan after 
plan did he make of the projected ship, model after 
model did he prepare and abandon before he was 
satisfied : and never was a ship more honestly built. 
With her double-ended deck plan, with a side of such 
curve and slope that under ice pressure she would be 
lifted instead of crushed between the floes, and with 
bow, stern, and keel so rounded off that she would slip 
like an eel from the embrace of the ice, she was oi 
such solidity as to withstand any pressure from any 
direction. Her stem of three stout oak beams, one 
inside the other, was four feet in thickness, protected 
with iron ; her rudder-post and propeller-post, two feet 
across, had on either side a stout oak counter-timber 
following the curvature upwards and forming a double 
stern-post, with the planking cased with heavy iron 
plates ; and between these timbers was a well for the 
screw and another for the rudder, so that each could 
be hoisted on deck, the rudder with the help of the 
capstan coming up in a few minutes. Her frames, 
ten inches thick and twenty-one wide, stood close 
together, carrying three layers of planking, giving 
altogether a side of two feet or more of solid wood, 
so shored and stayed for strength that the hold looked 
like a thicket of balks, joists, and stanchions. With 
a length of 128 feet over all, a breadth of thirty-six, a 
depth of seventeen, and a displacement of 800 tons, 
she was quite a multum-in-parvo engined with a 
220 horse-power triple expansion, so contrived that in 
case of accident or for any other cause the cylinders 
could be used singly or two together. Rigged as a three- 
masted fore-and-aft schooner, with the mainmast much 



A WALRUS HUNT 93 

higher than the others — it being unusually high, for 
the crow's-nest on the main-topmast was 102 feet 
above the water — she proved equal to the demands on 
her, though in her case strength and warmth had to be 
thought of before weatherliness and speed. But her 
speed was not so poor, for when steaming and sailing 
after leaving Cape Chelyuskin on the 10th of Sep- 
tember she was doing her nine knots. 

The day after she had entered the Nordenskiold 
Sea came a walrus-hunt, so graphically described by 
Nansen that we must find room for an extract. " It 
was," he says, " a lovely morning — fine, still weather ; 
the walruses' guffaw sounded over to us along the 
clear ice surface. They were lying crowded together 
on a floe a little to landward of us, blue mountains 
glittering behind them in the sun. At last the har- 
poons were sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and 
Henriksen, Juell, and I set off. There seemed to be 
a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to the 
north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals. 
From time to time their sentry raised his head, but 
apparently did not see us. We advanced slowly, and 
soon were so near that we had to row very cautiously. 
Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the 
bow with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun. 
The moment the sentry raised his head the oars 
stopped, and we stood motionless ; when he sank it 
again, a few more strokes brought us nearer. Body 
to body they lay, close-packed on a small floe, old and 
young ones mixed. Enormous masses of flesh they 
were. Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself 
by moving one of her flippers backwards and forwards 



94 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

over her body ; then she lay quiet again on her back 
or side. More and more cautiously we drew near. 
Whilst I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a 
good grip of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat 
touched the floe he rose, and off flew the harpoon. 
But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide, 
and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now 
there was a pretty to do ! Ten or twelve great weird 
faces glared upon us at once ; the colossal creatures 
twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and 
came waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings 
to the edge of the ice where we lay. It was un- 
deniably an imposing sight ; but I laid my gun to my 
shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The 
animal staggered and then fell head foremost into the 
water. Now a ball into another head ; this creature 
fell, too, but was able to fling itself into the sea. And 
now the whole flock dashed in, and we, as well as they, 
were hidden in the spray. It had all happened in a 
few seconds. But up they came again immediately 
round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier than 
the other — their young ones close beside them. They 
stood up in the water, bellowed and roared till the air 
trembled, threw themselves forward towards us, then 
rose up again, and new bellowings filled the air. 
Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash, 
then bobbed up again. The water foamed and boiled 
for yards around — the ice- world that had been so still 
before seemed in a moment to have been transformed 
into a raging Bedlam. Any moment we might expect 
to have a walrus tusk or two through the boat or to 
be heaved up or capsized. Something of this kind 



FROZEN IN 95 

was the very least that could happen after such a 
terrible commotion. But the hurly-burly went on 
and nothing came of it." 

The From had to follow the coast owing to the thick 
pack barring the way across the sea. The mouth of 
the Chatanga was passed, then that of the Olenek, and 
then the influence of the warm water of the Lena 
being apparent by the clearance of the floes, the course 
was laid straight for the Pole in open water until 
77° 44' was reached, when, checked by the long com- 
pact edge of ice shining through the fog, the route 
became north-westerly until they stopped for fear they 
should get near land, which was the very thing they 
wished to avoid ; and on the 25th of September in 
about 78j° north latitude — north-west of Sannikof 
Land — they were frozen in. 

Preparations for wintering began. The rudder was 
hauled up, the engine was taken to pieces, each separate 
part oiled and laid away with the greatest care — for 
Amundsen looked after it as if it were his own child — 
a carpenter's shop was started in the hold, a smithy 
arranged first on deck and then on the ice. But it all 
had to be replaced, even the engine put together again, 
for the pack cleared away for a brief period, to return, 
when again the shiftings were made ; and when the 
windmill was put up to drive the dynamo, the winter 
installation was in all senses complete. 

Slowly the Fram drifted in her ice-berth, so slowly 
that at the end of twelve months she had moved from 
point to point only 189 miles, having returned no fur- 
ther west than the longitude of the Olenek; her 
highest north, attained on the 18th of June, being 



96 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

81° 46'. In the main the drift was north-westerly, but 
three times it had boxed the compass in irregular loops, 
the only constant thing about it being that, in no 
matter what direction she was taken, the bow of the 
Fram always pointed south. Of grips she had many, 
some of the pressures were enormous, once they were 
severe enough to suggest measures for her abandon- 
ment, but she survived them all unscathed. Early in 
the drift it became apparent that the ice was packing 
twice and slacking twice in every twenty-four hours, 
and in this sea, as afterwards in the Atlantic area, the 
influence of the tides, particularly the spring tides, was 
unmistakable — as it was expected it would be — though 
in the deep Polar basin the wind had more effect ; and, 
in truth, the wind was a factor throughout in the packing 
of the ice and in the drift's direction. One thing was 
clear, that the current was not taking the Fram across 
the North Pole, but about half-way between it and 
Spitsbergen ; and if the Pole was to be reached some 
of the expedition must attempt to get there over the 
ice. This meant leaving the ship, going north, and 
returning to the nearest known land, for, owing to the 
irregularity of the drift, it was hopeless to think of 
again reaching the Fram. During the second winter 
the route of the ship trended more to the north, and, 
after a loop all round in January, she reached 84° 4' on 
the 14th of March in the longitude of Cape Chelyuskin. 
Here Nansen and Lieutenant F. H. Johansen, who 
rather than not join the Fram had shipped in her as 
stoker, left the ship with three sledges, two kayaks, and 
twenty-eight dogs to go as far northward as they could, 
their expectation being that they would reach the Pole 




Ot^i^oJ^^i^i^ 



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JOURNEYING TOWARDS THE POLE 97 

in fifty days. Had they remained in the ship until 
November they would have saved themselves trouble, 
for, as matters turned out, the embarrassing drift took 
the Frani within eight miles of the farthest north 
they attained after twenty-three days of strenuous en- 
deavour. 

The ice, fairly easy for a few days, soon became 
terrible in the difficulties it offered to progress over it, 
and the continual toil of hauling and carrying the 
sledges, and righting them when capsized, soon told on 
the two men to such an extent as to tire them out so 
thoroughly that sometimes in the evening they fell 
asleep as they went along. The cold, too, proved 
singularly searching and severe. During the course of 
the day the damp exhalations of the body little by 
little became condensed in their outer garments, which 
became transformed into suits of ice-armour, so hard 
that if they could have been got off they could have 
stood by themselves, and they crackled audibly at every 
movement. The clothes were so stiff that the sleeve 
of Nansen's coat rubbed deep sores in his wrist, one of 
which got frost-bitten, the wound growing deeper and 
deeper and nearly reaching the bone. " How cold we 
were," says Nansen, " as we lay there shivering in the 
bag, waiting for the supper to be ready ! I, who was 
cook, was obliged to keep myself more or less awake to 
see to the culinary operations, and sometimes I suc- 
ceeded. At last the supper was ready, was portioned 
out, and, as always, tasted delicious. These occasions 
were the supreme moments of our existence, moments 
to which we looked forward all day long. But some- 
times we were so weary that our eyes closed, and we 



98 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

fell asleep with the food on its way to our mouths. 
Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons 
in them and the food fly out on the bag." 

The further they went the worse became the condi- 
tions. On the 8th of April, with ridge after ridge and 
nothing but rubble to travel over, the work became so 
disheartening that Nansen went on ahead on his skis 
and from the highest hummocks viewed the state of 
affairs ; and as far as the horizon, lay a chaos of such 
character that progress across was impracticable if he 
and Johansen were to return alive. Here, then, they 
stopped, this being their northernmost limit, 128 miles 
from the Fram, 260 miles from the Pole, latitude 
86° 13-6', longitude 95°. 

To reach this point they had been travelling north- 
westwards for six days, the way due north being 
impassable ; but on turning south they seemed to enter 
another country ; so much did the going improve after 
the first mile that in three days they covered over forty 
miles. They were making for Petermann Land, which 
does not exist, or for the wide-stretching Franz Josef 
Land, also placed on the maps by Payer, which Jack- 
son had been cutting up into fragments while the Fram 
was in the ice. Further south difficulties thickened 
ahead of them till the road became almost as bad as 
that to the north. Before they reached land the hun- 
dred days they had allowed themselves had increased to 
more than half as many again, their dogs had been 
killed one by one to yield food for the rest, until only 
two remained ; Nansen was helpless with rheumatism 
for two days ; and Johansen was nearly killed by a 
bear. Through a chain of disasters caused by storms 



FREDERICK JACKSON ISLAND 99 

and fogs and snow and the state of the ice, they 
threaded their way, sometimes by sledge, sometimes by 
kayak, through mazes of open channels, leaping from 
floe to floe and ferrying back to get their baggage over, 
hundreds of yards on mere brash, dragging the sledges 
after them in constant fear of their capsizing into the 
water. Then the ice gave out and, taking to their 
kayaks, they sailed and paddled to what is now known 
as Frederick Jackson Island in the north of the Franz 
Josef Archipelago. 

Here they wintered, quite at a loss at first to know 
where they were, owing to their watches having run 
down during a great effort of thirty-six hours at a 
stretch, so that they did not know their longitude, 
though they subsequently concluded they must be 
somewhere on Franz Josef Land within 140 miles of 
Eira Harbour. They built a hut and altogether lived 
passably well, there being no lack of food, thanks 
mainly to the bears, whose visits were embarrassing in 
their frequency though the visitors were not unwelcome 
when they came to stay. 

On the 19th of May they set out for the south, down 
British Channel, with their sledges and kayaks, and 
five days afterwards, when off Cape M'Clintock, while 
Johansen was busy lashing the sail and mast securely to 
the deck of his kayak to prevent their being blown 
away, Nansen went on ahead to look for a camping 
ground and fell through a crack in the ice which had 
been hidden by the snow. He tried to get out, but 
with his skis firmly fastened could not pull them up 
through the rubble of ice which had fallen into the 
water on the top of them, and, being harnessed to the 



100 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

sledge, he could not turn round. Fortunately, as he 
fell, he had dug his staff into the ice on the opposite 
side of the crack, and holding himself up with its aid, 
and the arm he had got over the edge of the ice, he 
waited patiently for Johansen to come and pull him 
out. When he thought a long time had passed and 
felt the staff giving way and the water creeping further 
up his body, he called out but received no answer ; and 
it was not until the water had reached his chest that 
Johansen came and pulled him out. 

For a few days they were storm-bound. On the 
3rd of June they started again down the channel, their 
whereabouts still a mystery to them, nothing in the 
least like it being on their map. Nine days after- 
wards, after rounding Cape Barents on Northbrook 
Island, the kayaks, which had been left moored to the 
edge of the ice, got adrift. Nansen, running down 
from the hummock, from which he had been looking 
round, threw off some of his clothes and sprang into 
the water. The wind was off the ice, and the kayaks 
with their high rigging were moving away as fast as 
he could swim. It seemed more than doubtful if he 
could reach them. But all their hope was there, all 
they had was on board ; they had not even a knife 
with them, and whether he sank or turned back 
amounted to much the same thing. When he tired 
he turned over and swam on his back, and then he 
could see Johansen walking restlessly up and down on 
the ice, unable to do anything, and having the worst 
time he ever lived through. But the wind lulled, and 
when Nansen turned over he saw he was nearing the 
kayaks, and though his limbs were stiffening and 



RECOVERING THE KAYAKS 101 

losing all feeling, he put all the strength he could into 
his strokes, and eventually was able to reach them. 
He tried to pull himself up, but was so stiff with cold 
that he could not do so. For a moment he thought 
he was too late ; but after a little he managed to swing 
one leg up on to the edge of the sledge, which lay on 
the deck, and in this way he scrambled on board. 
The kayaks were lashed together so as to form a 
double boat, and the only way in which, owing to his 
stiffness, he could paddle them was to take one or two 
strokes on one side and then step into the other kayak 
and take a few strokes on the other side. The return 
was consequently slow, but it was a return, though 
the ice was reached a long way from where the drifting 
had begun. 

Next day but one came another perilous episode. 
" Towards morning," says Nansen, " we rowed for some 
time without seeing any walrus, and now felt more 
secure. Just then we saw a solitary rover pop up a 
little in front of us. Johansen, who was in front at 
the time, put in to a sunken ledge of ice ; and although 
I really thought that this was caution carried to excess, 
I was on the point of following his example. I had not 
gone so far, however, when suddenly the walrus shot 
up beside me, threw himself on to the edge of the kayak, 
took hold further over the deck with one flipper, and 
as it tried to upset me aimed a blow at the kayak with 
its tusks. I held on as tightly as possible, so as not 
to be upset into the water, and struck at the animal's 
head with the paddle as hard as I could. It took hold of 
the kayak once more and tilted me up so that the deck 
was almost under water, then let go and raised itself 



102 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

right up. I seized my gun, but at the same moment it 
turned round and disappeared as quickly as it had 
come. The whole thing had happened in a moment, 
and I was just going to remark to Johansen that we 
were fortunate in escaping so easily from that adventure, 
when I noticed that my legs were wet. I listened, 
and now heard the water trickling into the kayak 
under me. To turn and run her in on to the sunken 
ledge of ice was the work of a moment, but I sank 
there. The thing was to get out and on to the ice, 
the kayak filling all the time. The edge of the ice was 
high and loose, but I managed to rise ; and Johansen, 
by tilting the sinking kayak over to starboard, so that 
the leak came above the water, managed to bring her 
to a place where the ice was low enough to admit of 
our drawing her up. All I possessed was floating 
about inside, soaked through. So here we lie, with 
all our worldly goods spread out to dry and a kayak 
that must be mended before we can face the walrus 
again. It is a good big rent that he has made, at 
least six inches long ; but it is fortunate that it was no 
worse." 

The kayak was mended, and, after a long rest, it was 
past noon on the 17th of June when Nansen turned 
out to prepare breakfast. After doing so he went up 
on a hummock to look around. Flocks of little auks 
were flying overhead, and, amid the confused noise of 
their calls, he heard a couple of barks from a dog. 
Thinking he was mistaken he waited for a time, and 
then the barking was unmistakable, bark after bark, 
one of a deeper tone than the other. He shouted to 
Johansen, who started up from the sleeping-bag in- 



NANSEN MEETS JACKSON 103 

credulous. The sound ceased, and, breakfast over, 
Nansen went forth to investigate. Soon he came on 
the footprints of a dog or wolf, and then, still doubting, 
he heard a distant yelping that certainly came not from 
a wolf. Making his way among the hummocks, he 
heard a shout from a human voice, a strange voice — 
the first for three years. Running up on to a hum- 
mock he shouted with all his might. Back came a 
shout in reply ; and among the hummocks he caught 
sight of a dog, and further off a man walked into view. 
The man spoke to the dog in English. Thinking he 
recognised Jackson, Nansen raised his hat as he met 
him, and they shook hands heartily. 

The contrast could not have been greater. One the 
well-groomed, civilised European in a check suit and 
rubber water-boots, the other in dirty rags black with 
oil and soot, with long matted hair and shaggy beard, 
and a face in which the complexion was undiscernible 
through the accumulations which a winter's endeavours, 
including scrapings with a knife, had failed to remove. 
As they talked they had turned to go inland. Sud- 
denly Jackson stopped, and, looking the new arrival 
straight in the face, said — 

" Aren't you Nansen ?" 

"Yes, I am." 

" By Jove ! I'm damned glad to see you." 

And seizing his hand he shook it again, his whole 
face beaming with a smile of welcome and delight at 
the unexpected meeting ; and needless to say, both 
Nansen and Johansen received the warmest of wel- 
comes from all at Elmwood. The Windward was then 
on her way, and when she arrived the two Norsemen 



104 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 

from the farthest north went in her to Vardoe, where 

they landed on the 13th of August. 

Meanwhile the Fram had continued her leisurely- 
drift, north-west, south-west, north-west, west, then all 
round the compass, still with her head pointing south, 
until on the 15th of November she reached 85° 55'5 f in 
longitude 66° 31', thus giving Captain Otto Sverdrup 
the honour of attaining the highest north in a ship. 
Another winter was passed in her ice-berth, during 
which she moved westerly. In February came another 
complete triangle in her course, after which she went 
south-west, and on the 16th of May turned due south. 
Then, in the later days of the month with the southerly 
drift continuing and open water on ahead, Sverdrup 
resolved to set her free by mines, and on the 3rd of 
June, as a result of the blastings, she gave a lurch, 
settled a little deeper at the stern and moved away 
from the edge of the ice until the hawsers tautened. 
But, though she was afloat, the ice around still kept her 
captive, and in the pool she drifted straight towards 
Spitsbergen. 

Again and again was steam got up and endeavour 
made to break a way out, but day after day elapsed, 
and it was not until the 13th of August that she passed 
through the last floes into open water, and her thirty- 
five months of imprisonment came to an end. Making 
for Danes Island in Spitsbergen, she was there boarded 
by Andree, who was then preparing for his disappear- 
ance in the balloon voyage to the Pole. Going on 
direct to Skjervoe in Norway, Sverdrup landed at two 
o'clock in the morning to wake up the telegraphist, 
who told him that Nansen had reached Vardoe a week 



THE MEETING AT TROMSOE 105 

before and was then at Hammerfest and probably 
leaving for Tromsoe. For Tromsoe Sverdrup started, 
after telegraphing to Nansen. And there, at four 
o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, 1896, 
Sir George Baden-Powell's yacht Otaria, with Nansen 
and Johansen on board, glided alongside the Fram, the 
good little ship looking much weather-beaten though 
none the worse for such a task of strength and endur- 
ance as had been set no other in the story of the sea. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE LENA DELTA 

Discovery of the Siberian Islands — Hedenstrom — Anjou and Wrangell — 
Migration of reindeer— Animals and plants of the tundra — The north- 
ward migration of the native tribes — The voyage of the Jeannette —Her 
drift in the pack — Jeannette Island — Henrietta Island— The ship crushed 
and sunk — Landing on Bennett Island — The boat voyage — The boats 
separate in a storm — De Long lands on the Lena Delta — Nindemann 
and Noros in search of assistance — Safety of the whale-boat — Fate of 
De Long and his companions — Baron Toll's discoveries. 

THE Siberian Islands, lying north of the delta of 
the Lena, answer to the Parry Islands on the 
American side, the two groups being separated by that 
wide stretch of the Arctic Ocean communicating with 
the Pacific through Bering Strait. At first the Asiatic 
group was officially named after Liakhoff, then it was 
called after the unwisely named New Siberia, but, 
under any designation, it took half a century to find 
the different islands, and considerably more to land 
on them. 

When Liakhoff discovered the one named after him 
by the Empress Catherine, he also went north to 
Moloi, and he seems to have visited Kotelnoi to the 
north-west. In 1775 Chvoinof was sent to survey 
these three, but he devoted most of his attention to 
Liakhoff Island — fifty miles across — which he found 
to consist, as reported, of hills of granite rising from 
a mass of mammoth bones, sand, and ice, some of the 

1 06 



THE LENA DELTA 




100 100 200 300 4O0 SOO 



To face page 106 



THE SIBERIAN ISLANDS 107 

ice ancient enough to carry a deep covering of moss. 
Though he stated that other islands could be made 
out in the distance, nothing was done to verify his 
discoveries, real or imaginary, until thirty years had 
passed, when Thaddeus and Stolbovoi were reached. 
Next year (1806) New Siberia, to the eastward, was 
discovered by Sirovatskof, and two years afterwards 
Bjelkof was added to the southerly portion of the 
archipelago. 

In 1809 Hedenstrom, assisted by Sannikof, began 
his series of surveys extending over all these, and 
cleared up much of the mystery concerning them. 
From Thaddeus, Sannikof sighted, away to the north- 
ward, what is now known as Bennett Island ; and, 
from New Siberia, Hedenstrom sighted Henrietta and 
Jeannette Islands, and set out for them, and would 
have reached them had his sledges not been stopped by 
open water. Like his predecessors he was astonished 
at the mammoth remains on Liakhoff Island. 

According to his account, "these bones or tusks 
are less large and heavy the further we advance 
towards the north, so that it is a rare occurrence on 
the islands to meet with a tusk of more than 108 lbs. 
in weight, whereas on the continent they are said often 
to weigh as much as 432 lbs. In quantity, however, these 
bones increase wonderfully to the northward, and as 
Sannikof expresses himself, the whole soil of the first 
of the Liakhoff Islands appears to consist of them. 
For about eighty years the fur-hunters have every 
year brought large cargoes from this island, but as yet 
there is no sensible diminution of the stock. The 
tusks on the islands are also much more fresh and 



108 THE LENA DELTA 

white than those on the continent. A sandbank on 
the western side was most productive of all, and the 
fur-hunters maintain that when the sea recedes after a 
long continuance of easterly winds, a fresh supply of 
mammoth bones is always found to have been washed 
from this bank, proceeding apparently from some vast 
store at the bottom of the sea." Besides these multi- 
tudinous remains of the mammoth Hedenstrom found 
numerous remains of rhinoceros, the horn of which 
was then thought to be a bird's claw three feet long. 

To clear up the wide discrepancies in the maps the 
Emperor Alexander, in 1820, equipped two expeditions 
to proceed by land to the northern coast of Siberia 
and properly survey it, the work to be carried as far 
east as Cape Chelagskoi, whence a sledge party was to 
start for the north in search of the inhabited country re- 
ported to exist in the Polar Sea in that direction. One 
of these expeditions, under lieutenant P. F. Anjou, 
was to commence its operations from the mouth of 
the Yana ; the other, under Lieutenant Ferdinand 
Vrangel' (or, as he is generally known amongst us, 
Wrangell or Von Wrangell), was to start from the 
mouth of the Kolyma, his chief assistant being Mid- 
shipman Matiuschkin. Both parties did good survey 
work, but neither made any striking discovery. Anjou 
reached 76° 36' to the north of Kotelnoi ; Wrangell 
reached 72° 2' (north-east of the Bear Islands, one 
hundred and seventy-four miles out on the sea from 
the great Baranoff rock), beyond which progress was 
impossible owing to the thinness of the ice, which was 
covered with salt water. 

Wrangell had many perilous experiences. In his 



A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE 109 

fourth journey over the sea the ice broke up around 
him and he found himself on a floe with a labyrinth 
of water lanes hemming him in on every side and a 
storm coming on from the westward. The storm 
rapidly increased in fury, and the masses of ice around 
him were soon dashing against each other and break- 
ing in all directions. On the floe, which was tossing to 
and fro on the waves, he gazed in painful inactivity on 
the conflict, expecting every moment to be swallowed 
up. For three long hours he had remained unable to 
move, the mass of ice beneath him holding together, 
when it was caught by the storm and hurled against a 
large field of ice. The crash was terrific, as it was 
shattered into little pieces. At that dreadful moment, 
when escape seemed impossible, he was saved by the 
impulse of self-preservation. Instinctively the party 
sprang on to the sledges and urged the dogs to full 
speed, and as hard as they could gallop they skimmed 
across the yielding fragments to the field on which 
they had been stranded, and safely reached a stretch 
of firmer ice, where the dogs ceased running among 
the hummocks, conscious that the danger was past. 

But it is not so much for adventures like this that his 
account of his work is of continuing interest as for the 
abundance of its notes and reflections on the country 
and its life and climate. Once, for instance, when on 
the Baranicha he was fortunate enough to witness a 
migration of reindeer. " I had hardly finished the 
observation," he says, " when my whole attention was 
called to a highly interesting, and to me a perfectly 
novel, spectacle. Two large migrating bodies of rein- 
deer passed us at no great distance. They were de- 



110 THE LENA DELTA 

scending the hills from the north-west and crossing the 
plain on their way to the forests, where they spend the 
winter. Both bodies of deer extended further than the 
eye could reach, and formed a compact mass, narrow- 
ing towards the front. They moved slowly and majes- 
tically along, their broad antlers resembling a moving 
wood of leafless trees. Each body was led by a deer of 
unusual size, which my guides assured me was always a 
female. One of the herds was stealthily followed by a 
wolf, who was apparently watching for an opportunity 
of seizing any one of the younger and weaker deer 
which might fall behind the rest, but on seeing us he 
made off in another direction. The other column was 
followed at some distance by a large black bear, who, 
however, appeared only intent on digging out a mouse's 
nest every now and then, so much so that he took no 
notice of us. We had great difficulty in restraining 
our two dogs, but happily succeeded in doing so ; their 
barking, or any sound or motion on our part, might 
have alarmed the deer, and by turning them from their 
course, have proved a terrible misfortune to the hun- 
ters, who were awaiting their passage, on which they 
are entirely dependent for support. We remained for 
two hours whilst the herds of deer were passing by, 
and then resumed our march." 

The way in which the deer are dealt with by the 
hunters was seen by Matiuschkin when despatched by 
Wrangell to survey the Anyui. "The true harvest, 
which we arrived just in time to see, is in August or 
September, when the reindeer are returning from the 
plains to the forests. They are then healthy and well 
fed, the venison is excellent, and as they have just 



THE MIGRATION OF THE REINDEER 111 

acquired their winter coats the fur is thick and warm. 
The difference of the quality of the skins at the two 
seasons is such, that whilst an autumn skin is valued at 
five or six roubles, a spring one will only fetch one or 
one and a half roubles. In good years the migrating 
body of reindeer consists of many thousands ; and 
though they are divided into herds of two or three 
hundred each, yet the herds keep so near together as to 
form only one immense mass, which is sometimes from 
thirty to seventy miles in breadth. They always 
follow the same route, and in crossing the river near 
Plotbischtsche, they choose a place where a dry valley 
leads down to the stream on one side, and a flat sandy 
shore facilitates their landing on the other side. As 
each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw 
more closely together, and the largest and strongest 
takes the lead. He advances, closely followed by a 
few of the others, with head erect, and apparently 
intent on examining the locality. When he has satis- 
fied himself, he enters the river, the rest of the herd 
crowd after him, and in a few minutes the surface is 
covered with them. Then the hunters, who have been 
concealed to leeward, rush in their light canoes from 
their hiding-places, surround the deer, and delay their 
passage, whilst two or three chosen men armed with 
short spears dash into the middle of the herd and de- 
spatch large numbers in an incredibly short time ; or at 
least wound them so, that, if they reach the bank, it is 
only to fall into the hands of the women and children. 
The office of the spearman is a very dangerous one. 
It is no easy thing to keep the light boat afloat among 
the dense crowd of swimming deer, which, moreover, 



112 THE LENA DELTA 

make considerable resistance ; the males with their 
horns, teeth, and hind legs, whilst the females try to 
overset the boat by getting their fore-feet over the 
gunwale ; if they succeed in this the hunter is lost, for 
it is hardly possible that he should extricate himself 
from the throng ; but the skill of these people is so 
great that accidents very rarely occur. A good hunter 
may kill a hundred or more in less than half an hour. 
When the herd is large, and gets into disorder, it often 
happens that their antlers become entangled with each 
other ; they are then unable to defend themselves, and 
the business is much easier. Meanwhile the rest of the 
boats pick up the slain and fasten them together with 
thongs, and every one is allowed to keep what he lays 
hold of in this manner. It might seem that in this 
way nothing would be left to requite the spearmen for 
their skill, and the danger they have encountered ; but 
whilst everything taken in the river is the property of 
whoever secures it, the wounded animals which reach 
the bank before they fall, belong to the spearman who 
wounded them. The skill and experience of these men 
are such that in the thickest of the conflict, when 
every energy is taxed to the uttermost, and their life is 
every moment at stake, they have sufficient presence of 
mind to contrive to measure the force of their blows so 
as to kill the smallest animals outright, but only to 
wound the larger and finer ones, so that they may be 
just able to reach the bank. Such proceeding is not 
sanctioned by the general voice, but it seems neverthe- 
less to be almost always practised. The whole scene is 
of a most singular and curious character, and quite 
indescribable. The throng of thousands of swimming 



THE TUNDRA 113 

reindeer, the sound produced by the striking together 
of their antlers, the swift canoes dashing in amongst 
them, the terror of the frightened animals, the danger 
of the hunters, the shouts of warning advice or applause 
from their friends, the blood-stained water, and all the 
accompanying circumstances, form a whole which no 
one can picture to himself without having witnessed 
the scene." 

The tundra has no more characteristic animal than 
the reindeer. Over the mossy hillocks and the matted 
tops of the dwarf birches he runs, or through the rivers 
and lakes he swims, with his broad-hoofed, spade-like 
feet never at a loss to find a footing. In the long 
winter he is protected by his thick skin against the 
influence of the cold, and is seldom at starvation point, 
as he digs for food in the deepest snow, and is by no 
means particular what he eats ; and in the short 
summer he is in luxurious ease, for the tundra, as we 
have seen, is not always as bad as it is painted. In 
exposed places near the coast it is little else than 
gravel beds interspersed with patches of peat and 
clay, with scarcely a rush or a sedge to break the 
monotony, but by far the greater part of it is a gently 
undulating plain, broken up by lakes, rivers, swamps, 
and bogs ; the lakes with patches of green water- 
plants, the rivers flowing between sedges and rushes, 
the swamps the breeding haunts of ruffs and phala- 
ropes, the bogs dotted with the white fluffy seeds of 
the cotton-grass. Almost everywhere the birds are in 
noticeable numbers, among the commonest being the 
golden plover (who wears the tundra colours), the blue- 
throat, the fieldfare, the whooper swan, and the 



114 THE LENA DELTA 

ducks and divers — particularly the divers — and, amon^ 
the birds of prey, the falcons and the rough-leggec 
buzzards, which, with the owls, find such abundant 
provision in the lemmings that migrate in myriads 
compared with which the reindeer troops are in- 
significant. 

" The groundwork of all this variegated scenery," 
says Seebohm, " is more beautiful and varied still- 
lichens and mosses of almost every conceivable colour, 
from the cream-coloured reindeer-moss to the scarlet- 
cupped trumpet-moss, interspersed with a brillianl 
alpine flora, gentians, anemones, saxifrages, and hun- 
dreds of plants, each a picture in itself, the tall aconites 
both the blue and yellow species, the beautiful cloud- 
berry, with its gay white blossom and amber fruit, 
the fragrant Ledum palustre and the delicate pinl 
Andromeda polifolia. In the sheltered valleys an( 
deep water-courses a few stunted birches, and some- 
times large patches of willow scrub, survive the lon^ 
severe winter, and serve as cover for willow-grouse oi 
ptarmigan. The Lapland bunting and red-throatec 
pipit are everywhere to be seen, and certain favourec 
places are the breeding-grounds of plovers and sand- 
pipers of many species. So far from meriting the name 
of Barren Ground, the tundra is for the most part 
veritable paradise in summer. But it has one almost 
fatal drawback — it swarms with mosquitoes." 

The beauty of the tundra is, however, transient and 
skin deep ; it is only such plants as can live in the soil 
that thaws that survive. Wherever the ground is dug 
into, ice is sure to be reached ; in fact, it may be said 
that ice is one of the rocks of the subsoil, and in some 





o 



THE NATIONS OF THE COAST 115 

places these strata of ice that never melts have been 
found to be three hundred feet thick — ice that has 
remained in block since the mammoths got into cold 
storage in it ages ago, for otherwise they would not 
have lasted intact in skin and flesh as many have done, 
like the very first discovered in a complete state, that 
chipped out by Adams in 1807. 

In such a climate, whose winter terrors are only too 
prominent, all along the north of Siberia live the 
ancient peoples driven towards the sea by those 
mighty movements from the land of the Turk and 
Mongol which, north and south, east and west, 
flooded Europe and Asia with invaders — Ostiaks and 
Samoyeds west of Chelyuskin ; Yakuts, Chukches, 
and others to the east of it, the descriptions of whose 
unpleasant manners and customs appear to be written 
with a view to showing how curiously local are the 
laws of health. One may well ask, as Wrangell did, 
why they should remain in so dreary a region and 
take life so contentedly. And the answer may be 
that they might go further north and fare worse, as 
their predecessors in the eastern section would seem 
to have done. Once, according to the legend, there 
were more hearths of the Omoki on the shores of the 
Kolyma than there are stars in the clear sky, and these 
Omoki, or some other departed race, appear to have 
left as their traces the remains of the timber forts and 
the tumuli that are found on the coast, especially near 
the Indiyirka, and the huts of earth and stones and 
bones found all along from Chelagskoi to the straits, 
similar remains of a departed people now existing in 
the Parry Islands, over a thousand miles away. 



116 THE LENA DELTA 

According to another legend of more recent date, 
there was an intervening land, the land that Wrangell 
went to seek and the Jeannette went to winter at, 
and the supposed site of which she drifted through, in 
her last and longest imprisonment in the ice. 

The Jeannette was the old Pandora, bought from 
Sir Allen Young by James Gordon Bennett, and 
accepted by and fitted out, officered, and manned 
under the orders of the Navy Department of the 
United States, her commander being Lieutenant 
George Washington De Long. She left San Fran- 
cisco on the 8th of July, 1879, and two months after- 
wards had been run into the pack and was fast in the 
ice off Herald Island, drifting to her doom. Her 
route, in the main, was north-westerly, with many 
complicated loops, at first at the rate of half a mile a 
day, then at two miles, then at three, showing that 
the current from Bering Strait had been reinforced by 
some other current as she went further west, and, 
from its direction, there seemed to be land to the 
northward which was never sighted. 

Wrangell Land, passed to the south, proved to be 
not a continent but a small island. No other land was 
seen for a monotonous twenty months, and then, in 
May, 1881, the ship drifted, stern first, past that 
sighted by Hedenstrom from New Siberia, which was 
found to consist of two islands, to be henceforth known 
as Jeannette and Henrietta. On the 12th of June, in 
latitude 77° 14' 57", the Jeannette was crushed and sank, 
her fore yardarms breaking upwards as she slipped 
down through the rift in the pack, and a start was 
made for the Siberian Islands over the ice; but the 



DE LONG'S BOAT VOYAGE 117 

drift had taken the party to 77° 36', before they got 
on their proper course, and after a most laborious 
journey, lasting up to the 28th of July, they were safe 
ashore on the land sighted by Sannikof from Thaddeus, 
which De Long named Bennett Island. 

Bennett Island was left on the 7th of August, the 
party of thirty-three being in three boats, thirteen 
under De Long in the first cutter, ten under Lieu- 
tenant Chipp in the much smaller second cutter, and 
ten, under Engineer George W. Melville, whose skill 
and resourcefulness had been conspicuous throughout, 
were given the whale-boat, the most suitable of the 
three. Sail was made for Thaddeus Island, which was 
reached in safety ; after a halt of some days it was left 
on the 31st of August. Then Kotelnoi Island was 
reached and rested at ; then the boats made for Semo- 
novski, which was left on the 12th of September. 

The same day a gale came on in which the first 
cutter had great difficulty in keeping afloat, the second 
cutter disappeared never to be heard of again, and the 
whale-boat, behaving excellently, went off before the 
wind straight for the continent to reach in safety one 
of the eastern mouths of the Lena, up which Melville 
arrived at a Russian village on the 26th of September. 
De Long's party ran their boat aground in shallow 
water, on the 17th of September, and rafted and waded 
ashore to one of the most inhospitable spots on the 
globe. Heavily laden they made their way down the 
dreary delta, toiling through the snow, delayed by the 
tributaries which were not frozen over hard enough to 
bear, hampered by sickness and disablement, and finally 
dying one by one of starvation. 



118 THE LENA DELTA 

On the 9th of October De Long sent two of the sea- 
men, Nindemann and Noros, ahead in search of relief. 
They had no food but what they could find, and on the 
second day out their dinner consisted of a little willow 
tea and a burnt boot sole. Next morning they burnt 
another sole of a boot, and they spent the day strug- 
gling through a morass in drifting snow, crossing 
streams of all sizes, and halting for the night in so high 
a wind that they were unable to light a fire and took 
refuge in a hole in the snow from which they emerged 
with difficulty in the morning, owing to the wind having 
piled up the snow against the opening. At the end of 
the third day they reached a deserted hut in which 
were some deer bones, which they grilled and tried to 
eat, and in the morning a gale was blowing and the 
wild drifting snow was so thick that they had to remain 
where they were and continue their diet of charred 
bones and willow tea. 

Next day, Thursday, the 13th of October, they 
began against a strong head wind. In the afternoon 
they sighted a hut on the west bank of the river. 
" They had seen one in the morning, but had in vain 
attempted to cross the ice to it. Now they tried to 
reach this, but were turned back by the brittle ice. 
They kept it in sight as they moved southward, and 
made another attempt to cross the ice, but it broke and 
they came back. Then they saw that there was no 
further progress possible to the southward on that side 
of the water, and they returned to the ice. It broke 
again, but they kept on. They went in up to their 
waists, but managed to pull themselves up on the 
stronger ice." The wind was blowing against them 



NINDEMANN AND NOROS 119 

and the ice was like glass, so that they were driven 
back. They looked about for ice which had been 
roughened by the ripples beneath, and finding some 
they succeeded at length in reaching the other side, 
where were two wooden crosses beneath a bank, which 
rose fifty feet above them. They pulled themselves up 
the bank, but when they came to the hut which they 
had kept in sight they found it a ruin nearly full of 
snow. " While Noros was trying to make a place in it 
for shelter, Nindemann saw a black object farther along 
to the south and went to it. It was a small peaked 
hut without a door, but large enough to hold two men. 
There were some fresh wood shavings outside the hut 
and higher up on the hill two boxes. On going to 
them Nindemann found them old and decayed, and he 
began to break one of them open. When he had 
ripped off the top he discovered that there was another 
box enclosed ; breaking into it he found a dead body, 
and hastily left it. Doubtless the two crosses below on 
the river bank were memorials of the two beings left 
high up above the reach of the floods." 

In the small hut they found a sort of floor, the 
boards of which they pulled up for firewood, and in a 
hole beneath was a box in which were a couple of fish 
and two fish heads ; and, as these were discovered, a 
lemming came out of another hole and was promptly 
caught. On the lemming, roasted on the ramrod, and 
the fishes, which were so decayed that they dropped 
apart as they were handled, they made their meal for 
that day. Next day the snowstorm was so heavy that 
they were driven back here after striving in vain to 
make headway. On the Saturday, still without food, 



120 THE LENA DELTA 

they rested for the night in a fissure in the river bank, 
where as a last resource Nindemann cut a piece off his 
sealskin trousers and soaked it in water and burnt it to 
a crust. Their breakfast consisted of the remains of 
this toasted sealskin. During the day they saw a crow 
flying across the river and in among the hills, and, as 
the crow in these regions is rarely found away from the 
haunts of men, Nindemann decided to cross the river 
in the hope of meeting with either natives or game on 
the other side. When darkness came on no shelter 
was discoverable, and so, after a meal of more sealskin 
and hot water, they went to rest in a hole in the snow. 
Next day, during which they recrossed the river, their 
experiences were similar and the end the same. 

On Tuesday the 18th, after a terrible day, they came 
upon a hut with a pile of wood close by, which proved 
to be sledges, and these they broke up, as there was no 
other firing. Next day as they were struggling on 
they reached a place where there were three huts, in 
one of which was a half-kayak and in it was some blue 
mouldy fish ; and here, attacked by dysentery, they 
remained until the Saturday, unable to go any further. 
About noon there was a noise outside like a flock of 
geese sweeping by. Nindemann, looking through the 
crack of the door, saw something moving which he took 
to be a reindeer, and was going out with his rifle when 
the door opened and a man entered, who promptly fell 
on his knees when he caught sight of the gun. Ninde- 
mann threw the rifle into a corner and, trying to make 
friends with the man by signs, offered him some of the 
fish, which the man by an emphatic gesture pro- 
nounced not fit to eat. After some more of the sign 



FOUND BY THE NATIVES 121 

lang-uaffe it was clear that the native had no food with 
him, and holding up three or four fingers to show that 
he would return in so many hours or days he drove off. 
About six o'clock in the evening, while they were pre- 
paring their fish dinner, the visitor returned with two 
other men, one of whom brought in a frozen fish which 
he skinned and sliced, and while the sailors were eating 
it — the first healthy meal they had had for weeks — the 
natives invited them to accompany them, and brought 
in deerskin coats and boots and finally got them into 
the sledges and drove off to the westward for about 
fifteen miles. Here there were two tents, and Ninde- 
mann was taken into one, Noros into the other, and 
both were well looked after, the natives doing their 
very best to get them well. 

This was intelligible on both sides, for the language 
of kindness is universal, but as the sailors knew not the 
language of their hosts, and the natives knew not the 
language of their guests, the difficulty of being under- 
stood by each other was great, and the delivery of the 
urgent message in signs was almost impossible. Ninde- 
mann did his best ; he appealed to the man who seemed 
to be the head of the party, and drawing in the snow a 
map of the places where he had been, with every com- 
bination of signs he could think of, he tried to explain 
what he wanted. That he succeeded to a certain 
extent was clear, though he did not think so at first, for 
the natives loaded up their sledges, twenty-seven in 
number, with reindeer meat and skins and fish, and 
struck their tents, and, with over a hundred head of 
deer harnessed up, started for the south. At noon, 
when the deer were resting, the man for whom the 



122 THE LENA DELTA 

map had been drawn in the snow took Nindemann to 
where he could show him a prominent landmark, and 
asked by signs if that was where he had left his 
friends. And on learning by signs that it was further 
to the north, he shook his head as if sorry, and resumed 
his journey to the south. During the next day they 
reached Ku Mark Surka, where there were a number of 
natives who were much interested in the new-comers, 
and again the sailors used every effort to deliver their 
message. 

Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the 
25th, Nindemann began talking to these people in 
signs and pantomime. Soon one of them showed that 
he had an idea of where the sailors came from, for 
he spoke to one of the boys, who ran off and returned 
with a model of a Yakutsk boat. Then they gathered 
round and evidently asked if the ship was anything 
like it. And in answer, Nindemann took up some 
sticks and placed three of them in the boat to show 
that his ship had three masts, and then he fastened 
smaller sticks across to show that she had yards, which 
seemed to surprise them greatly. Then he made a 
funnel out of wood and put it in position, and pointed 
to the fire and smoke to show that she was a steamer, 
and then he cut out a propeller with his knife and put 
it where the rudder was to show that she was a screw. 
Continuing his work he soon chipped out so many 
small boats to show how many she had ; and then, 
signing to one of the men to get him two pieces of ice, 
he showed them how the ship had been crushed. 
Pointing to the northward he tried to tell them that 
the ship had been crushed up there ; and then he put 



AN EFFORT IN SIGN LANGUAGE 123 

away the ship and kept only three of the little boats to 
tell that part of the story, and in the boats he put so 
many sticks to represent the number of men in each. 
When he had done this one of the men pointed to a 
dog that was looking on and asked if the ship had any, 
whereupon the sailor counted on his fingers to show 
there were about forty, and by pantomime explained 
that they had been shot. This being evidently 
understood, Nindemann drew a chart of the coast-line, 
and imitating a gale of wind showed that the boat he 
came from went to the land at a certain point and that 
he knew nothing of the others. Then he went on to 
show how they had all left the boat, waded ashore and 
walked along the river-bank, and he marked the huts 
where they had stopped, and then he indicated where 
one of the men had died and been buried in the river. 
This was understood, for all the audience shook their 
heads as if to say how sorry they were. But when he 
tried to tell them that he had left the captain two days 
afterwards and had been so many days on the way to 
ask for help, they showed that they either did not or 
would not understand ; and really it was not easy to 
make such a matter clear. 

Next day Nindemann made another attempt to get 
them to understand the one essential, urgent fact that 
help was needed, or the men would die ; but no, he 
could not do it. On the Thursday, despairing of the 
hopelessness of his task and the helplessness of his 
companions, he broke into tears and groans, and a 
woman in the hut took pity on him and spoke earnestly 
to one of the men, who came and said something 
about a commandant. Then the sailor, who had 



124 THE LENA DELTA 

picked up a few words, asked him to take him to 
Bulun, to which the man replied by again saying 
commandant and holding up five or six ringers. Late in 
the evening there arrived a tall Russian, whom Ninde- 
mann supposed to be the commandant and addressed 
in English, but he was a Russian exile who could 
not understand him, though he seemed to know some- 
thing about the matter, for in what he said he clearly 
mentioned Jeannette and Americansk. Nindemann 
tried him in German, but at this he shook his head. 
Then Nindemann showed him the chart given him by 
De Long, which the Russian evidently did not under- 
stand, though he said something that sounded like 
St. Petersburg and telegrams. While this apparently 
hopeless conversation was going on Noros was busy 
steadily writing out a note that the two sailors had 
drawn up, and the tall Russian — who we shall see was 
really a most intelligent man — giving over his talk 
with Nindemann in despair, coolly picked this up and 
put it in his pocket, and notwithstanding the protest 
of the Americans, walked off with it. In the morning 
he came in and gave them to understand that he was 
going to Bulun, and that they were to follow, and 
soon afterwards the natives fitted them out with 
clothing and boots and food and sent them off on a 
sledge. At Bulun they were taken to the comman- 
dant, who, after a little sign language from Ninde- 
mann, showed that he understood, and said something 
about a telegram. The sailors jumped at the idea, 
and one of them dictated to the other a despatch to 
the American Minister at St. Petersburg. This the 
Russian took, explaining that the captain should have 



FOUND BY MELVILLE 125 

it next day. Who the captain was the sailors could 
not make out ; but three days afterwards, that is on 
the 3rd of November, while Nindemann lay on the 
bed and Noros was sitting on the table, a man came in 
dressed in fur. 

"My God, Mr. Melville!" said Noros, recognising 
him as soon as he spoke. " Are you alive ? We 
thought that the whale-boats were all dead ! " 

The exile had handed the note to Melville, whom he 
knew as the captain, and his difficulty in understanding 
the sailors had been in their speaking of one boat 
while he had only seen the other. The whale-boat 
crew had reached a village opposite to where he lived, 
and he had agreed to take them to Bulun, and he was 
on his way there to arrange for their transport when he 
heard of the sailors. Like a sensible man he ordered 
the men to be sent to Bulun, and had hurried there, 
made his arrangements with the commandant and re- 
turned to Melville, who, seeing the urgency of the 
case as soon as he read the letter, had started at once, 
leaving his party to follow. 

Melville, as soon as possible, went off along the 
track of the two sailors, who were too weak to go 
with him, and eventually found the chronometer and 
the log-books and other records ; but the winter was 
too far advanced for him to do more, and he had 
to return, after a journey of over six hundred miles, 
to try again in the spring. Then, accompanied by 
Nindemann, he went north, and came upon the bodies 
of the commander and those who had perished with 
him, and three or four feet behind De Long, as if 
he had tossed it over his shoulder, lay the journal in 



126 THE LENA DELTA 

which the last page was but a chronicle of death after 
death. 

This chapter must conclude with another tragedy. 
In 1885 Dr. Bunge and Baron Toll made some im- 
portant investigations in the neighbourhood of the 
mouth of the Yana ; and next year Bunge among the 
fossils of Liakhoff Island found not only mammoth 
and rhinoceros, but horse, musk-ox and deer, and two 
new species of ox. To these Toll, after discovering 
that there were flourishing trees on Kotelnoi in the 
time of the mammoth — nearly two hundred miles 
north of their present limit — added frozen carcases 
of musk-ox and rhinoceros, and bones of antelope 
and tiger. 

In 1902 Toll, pushing his geological researches 
further north, reached Bennett Island, where he 
collected bones of the mammoth and other recent 
mammals, while the main mass of the plateau he 
identified as of Cambrian age. These discoveries he 
included in the record announcing his intention of 
leaving for Kotelnoi, which was found in 1904 by the 
expedition sent to his relief, for he was never seen 
alive again. 



CHAPTER VII 
BERING STRAIT 

Native stories of the distant continent — The Russians in Kamchatka — 
Bering's expedition — The difficulties of his task — Builds a vessel and 
reaches Kamchatka— Builds another vessel and discovers the strait named 
after him by Captain Cook — His second expedition — Spangberg's voyage 
to Japan — Bering reaches the American coast — His shipwreck and death 
— The influence of the sea-otter and the fur-seal on geographical dis- 
covery — The Arctic voyage of Captain Cook — Clerke's voyage — Beechey's 
voyage — Point Barrow reached by the barge of the Blossom— Kellett's 
voyage in the Herald — Boat expedition to Hudson Bay — Kellett reaches 
72° 51' — Landing on Herald Island — Kellett sights Wrangell Island — 
Berry in the Rodgers explores Wrangell Island — He reaches 73° 44' — 
Frederick Whymper and W. H. Dall ascend the Yukon. 

RUMOURS of land over against the far corner of 
Siberia had reached the Russians for years, and 
many were the legends of those who had seen these 
lands from the cliffs, or had been on the ice to look at 
them more closely, or had gone away to them and 
never come back. There was, for instance, the old 
legend of Kraechoj, who believed he had found safe 
shelter at Irkaipii from the Chukche vengeance, but 
the Chukche made his way into the stronghold and 
killed Kraechoj 's son, whereupon Kraechoj escaped by 
letting himself down with thongs to the boat and fled 
to the land whose mountains can be seen in clear sun- 
shine from Cape Yakan ; and there he was among his 
people who had left Asia before him. 

And among the official documents was the statement 

127 



128 BERING STRAIT 

made by the Chukches when they went to Anadyrskoi 
Ostrog to acknowledge the dominion of the Russians, 
that " The Noss is full of rocky mountains, and the 
low grounds consist of land covered with turf. Oppo- 
site to it lies an island, within sight of it, of no great 
extent, and void of wood. It is inhabited by people 
who have the same aspect as the Chukche, but are 
quite a different nation, and speak their own language, 
though they are not numerous. It is half a day's 
voyage with boats from the Noss to the island. There 
are no sables on the island, and no other animals but 
foxes, wolves, and reindeer. Beyond the island is a 
large continent that can be scarcely discerned from it, 
and that only on clear days ; in calm weather one may 
row over the sea from the island to the continent, 
which is inhabited by a people who in every particular 
resemble the Chukches. There are large forests of fir, 
pine, larch, and cedar trees ; great rivers flow through 
the country and fall into the sea. The inhabitants have 
dwellings and fortified places of abode environed with 
ramparts of earth ; they live upon wild reindeer and 
fish ; their clothes are made of sable, fox, and reindeer 
skins, for sables and foxes are there in great abundance. 
The number of men in that country may be twice or 
three times as many as that of the Chukches who are 
often at war with them." That there was land in sight 
somewhere seemed clear, but the reports differed in 
placing it all the way round from the north to the east. 
Many were the vain attempts to reach it from the 
northward-flowing rivers, and it was left to be iDund 
from the Pacific side. 

When Atlassof, in 1697, took the first steps in the 



BERING STRAIT 




100 100 200 30O "tOO S00 



To face page 128 



THE CONQUEST OF KAMCHATKA 129 

conquest of Kamchatka the Russians were already- 
known to the inhabitants. Long before him Fedotof 
and a few comrades had made their way into the 
country and intermarried with native women. They 
had been held in great honour and almost deified as 
being evidently of a superior race. For some time it 
was supposed that no human hand could hurt them, 
but this belief was rudely shattered when two of the 
demigods quarrelled and fought, and one wounding the 
other, the blood flowed. That flow of blood was fatal, 
for the natives, judging that they were but ordinary 
flesh, took an early opportunity of wiping them out, the 
name of their leader being still traceable in that of the 
Fedotcha River on the banks of which they had lived. 
The Kamchadales had other tales to tell of visitors 
from the east and south, and Atlassof himself dis- 
covered on the River Itcha a Japanese who had been 
wrecked on the coast two years before, from whom he 
learnt of islands innumerable. But there were no 
ships on the Pacific coast of Siberia, and nothing in 
the way of discovery could be done until 1714, when 
there arrived at Ochotsk a detachment of sailors and 
shipwrights despatched thither overland. According 
to one of the sailors, Henry Bush, a Dutchman, the 
carpenters built a good durable vessel some fifty feet 
long which was ready for sea in 1716 when the first 
voyage was undertaken. The coast of Kamchatka was 
made near the River Itcha, and sailing south they 
reached the Kompakova, where they wintered and 
found the whale that had in its body the harpoon of 
European workmanship marked with Roman letters, 
mentioned by Scoresby. Bush returned to Ochotsk in 



130 BERING STRAIT 

July, to be sent in the following year to discover the 
Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus 
venturing into the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka. 

The last of these expeditions was due to the direct 
order of Peter the Great, who, knowing nothing of 
Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the north, re- 
solved on a voyage in that direction, his holograph in- 
structions to Admiral Apraxin being: " One or two boats 
with decks to be built at Kamchatka, or at any other 
convenient place, with which inquiry should be made 
relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether they 
are not contiguous with America, since their termina- 
tion is not yet known." Peter died, and the Empress 
Catherine, carrying out these instructions in their 
fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for the 
expedition. 

Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had 
voyaged to the Indies, east and west, and, like many 
other men of enterprise, had entered the Russian 
service at Peter's invitation. He had served with 
distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against 
the Swedes, and, being in good repute for his know- 
ledge of ships and their handling, was appointed to the 
command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on 
record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a 
railway to be built there, so did Catherine in the same 
imperial way order an exploring expedition, and it 
was done. But it meant building the ship from the 
trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and 
carrying the materials and stores — everything but the 
timber — right across the Russian empire in the days 
when for thousands of miles there were not even roads. 




THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL) 



To face page 130 



BERING'S JOURNEY TO OCHOTSK 131 

Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and 
Alexei Tschirikof. With them and the rest of the 
expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of Feb- 
ruary, 1725. During that year they got as far as the 
Ilim, where they wintered. In the spring of 1726 
they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk, where they 
parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of 
the route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in 
summer with wagons, or in winter with sledges, on 
account of the marshes and rocky ground. So Spang- 
berg set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia, 
and Judoma, with part of the provisions and heavy 
naval stores, while Bering followed overland through 
uninhabited country with more stores on horses, and 
Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in 
the track of his commander. 

Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen 
up in the Judoma, and thence he walked to Ochotsk 
with the most necessary materials ; but he suffered so 
much from hunger on the way that he had to support 
life by eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did 
not reach Bering till the 1st of January, 1727, nearly 
two years after leaving St. Petersburg. In the begin- 
ning of February he returned to the Judoma and 
brought away about half of his lading, the other half 
being left for a third journey, which he made from 
and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was 
toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to 
complete the party until the 30th of July. 

On arrival Bering had to build a vessel to take his 
most necessary naval stores and his shipbuilders across 
the sea of Ochotsk to Bolscheretzkoi, which, in her, he 



132 BERING STRAIT 

reached on the 2nd of September. From here he 
followed the shipwrights, who went on ahead to fell the 
trees, taking with them the provisions and stores, over 
the backbone of the isthmus and down the Kamchatka 
River to the mouth, a distance of some two hundred 
miles, the journey being very slow on account of the 
travelling being by dog-sledge. In short, it was 
not until the 4th of April, 1728, that is, more than 
three years after leaving St. Petersburg, that it was 
possible to put on the stocks the vessel in which the 
voyage to the north was to be made. But she took 
only three months to build, being launched on the 
10th of July, when she was named the Gab?iel. 

Laden with stores for forty men during a year's 
voyage, she put to sea ten days afterwards, Bering 
keeping close to the coast so that he could map it as he 
went. On the 10th of August he was off the island of 
St. Lawrence, which he so named, as it was the day of 
that saint. In a day or two he had passed the East 
Cape without seeing the American coast, and had 
entered the Arctic Circle. And on the 15th he was 
well through the strait, out in the Arctic Ocean, in 
67° 18' off Serdze Kamen, a promontory behind which 
the coast trended to the west, as the Chukches had told 
him it did ; and he assumed, and rightly so, though he 
had not gone far enough to prove it, that there was 
no land connection between Asia and America. Where- 
upon, as he had in his opinion accomplished his mission, 
seeing no need for wintering in those parts, he put 
the Gabriel about and was back in the Kamchatka 
River on the 20th of September, after a voyage of seven 
weeks in a vessel that took three months to build on a 




THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS 



To face page 132 



SPANGBERG'S VOYAGE TO JAPAN 133 

spot that took over three years to reach — the plan of 
campaign being much the same as that in which a 
mountain stronghold is advanced on across a desert, 
besieged for a few days, and captured by assault. 

After wintering, Bering went off next year on a 
voyage due east in search of reported land, but, after 
some hundred and thirty miles out, he was blown back, 
and, rounding the south end of Kamchatka, put in at 
the River Bolschaia ; thence he crossed to Ochotsk, 
whence he started for St. Petersburg, where he arrived 
after an absence of five years. Catherine was dead and 
another empress reigned in her stead, who was pleased 
and satisfied if no one else was, and the 21st of Feb- 
ruary, 1733, saw him starting again in the same 
laborious fashion to arrange other voyages as part of a 
great scheme for the exploration of Northern and North- 
eastern Asia. Some of these expeditions on the north 
coast have already been mentioned ; Bering's particular 
task was to send Spangberg in search of Japan, while 
he and Tschirikof, in separate ships, went eastward to 
America. More stores and provisions went overland 
across Siberia than before ; Spangberg got again frozen 
up on the Judoma and had to continue on foot to 
Ochotsk, where he found plenty of food owing to 
Bering having sent on ahead, in case of any such 
trouble, a hundred horses, each of them laden with 
meal. In June, 1738, Spangberg, in two newly-built 
vessels and the Gab?iel, was off to Japan, to reach the 
Kuriles and return to winter in Kamchatka ; but next 
year he arrived there all well and found to his astonish- 
ment that the Japanese knew as much about maps as 
he did. He was still more astonished on his return to 



134 BERING STRAIT 

be told by those high in office at St. Petersburg that he 
could not possibly have been there as they had not got 
it on their maps where he said it was, and, consequently, 
he was to go where he had been as soon as he could to 
make sure. He started on this voyage of verification, 
but circumstances were against him and he did not 
reach there ; and his Japanese trip remained discredited 
until the Russian geographers knew better. His voyage 
thither had, however, used such a stock of provisions 
that it was two years before the deficiency could be 
made up, and it was actually the 4th of September, 
1740, seven and a half years after leaving St. Peters- 
burg, when Bering, in the specially-built St, Peter, and 
Tschirikof, in her sister the St. Paul, got off outward 
bound to America. 

In about three weeks they were at Awatcha Bay on 
the east of Kamchatka, anchored in the fine harbour 
named Petropaulovsk after the two ships, and here 
they had to stay for the winter, so that they did not 
leave Russian territory until the 4th of the following 
June. A few days out the ships were separated in a 
fog and storm, and the St. Paul reached the American 
coast first, at Kruzof Island on the western shore of 
Sitka Sound. The St. Peter three days afterwards, on . 
the 18th of July, drifted to the coast more to the 
northward, at Cape St. Elias near the mighty moun- 
tain of that name. In this neighbourhood amid much 
fog Bering stayed six weeks until he was blown out to 
sea, when, his men beginning to die from scurvy, he 
resolved to return to Kamchatka. It was a voyage of 
misfortune in a continual downfall, the men in want, 
misery, and sickness, continuously at work in the cold 



THE SEA-OTTER AND THE FUR-SEAL 135 

and wet, becoming fewer and fewer, so that there were 
not enough to work the ship properly. It ended on 
one of the Commander Islands by the vessel being 
lifted by the sea clear over a reef into calm water. 
Bering died — the island is named after him — and the 
survivors of the crew, building a boat from the materials 
of the St. Peter, arrived at Petropaulovsk on the 27th 
of August, bringing with them a quantity of sea-otter 
skins, which did more for discovery in those seas than 
any imperial expedition. 

As the sable had brought about the conquest of 
Siberia, so did the sea-otter lead to the seizure of the 
islands of the Bering Sea and the coasts of Alaska. 
Three years after the return of the survivors of the 
St. Peter, Nevodtsikof wintered on one of the Aleutian 
Islands, and in a few years the fur-hunters were at 
their exterminating work over the whole chain. In 
time the fur-seal attracted as much attention, and, with 
Pribylov's discovery, in 1786, of its rookeries on the 
islands named after him, the trade became of such 
increasing importance as to endanger in our time the 
peace of the world. Every one has heard of the wonder- 
ful haunts and habits of that strange eared seal which 
seems to have come from the south through the tropics 
to breed in the coldest limit of its range, now almost 
entirely on the Pribylovs and the Commanders ; how 
it is pursued in skin boats and every sort of craft, and 
scared in long lines to slaughter by clapping of boards 
and bones and waving of flags and opening and shut- 
ting of gingham umbrellas, until it promises to become 
as extinct as Steller's sea-cow or as rare as the sea- 
otter. 



136 BERING STRAIT 

Following Bering on the way to the north came 
Captain James Cook, in H.M.S. Resolution, who gave 
Bering's name to the strait. Cook sighted Mount 
St. Elias in May, 1778, and, cruising slowly along the 
coast with many discoveries and much accurate survey- 
ing, was off, and named, Cape Prince of Wales, the 
western extremity of America, on the 9th of August. 
He then crossed the strait and plied back until on 
the 18th he sighted and named Icy Cape in 70° 29'. 
Close to the edge of the ice, which was as compact as 
a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at the 
least, he sought persistently for a passage through, but 
none was to be found ; and after reaching 70° 6' in 
196° 42' (163° 18' W.) on the 19th, he turned westward 
to the Asiatic coast, along which he went until he 
sighted and named Cape North, as already stated. 
Then, blocked by ice, east, north, and west, he re- 
turned, passing Cape Serdze Kamen (Bering's farthest) 
and naming East Cape, confirming Bering's observation 
that it was the most easterly point of Asia. 

On Cook's death at Hawaii Captain Charles Clerke, 
of the accompanying vessel H.M.S. Discovery, took 
command of the expedition and carried out Cook's 
intention of making another effort during the follow- 
ing year. The ice conditions were, however, worse. 
The two ships found the ice block further south, and 
as impenetrable as before, and Clerke's highest was 
70° 33' on the American side, on the 19th of July. 
As it was Cook's last voyage, so it was Clerke's. He 
was in a bad way with consumption, and continued his 
work in the north, though, under the special circum- 
stances and being in command, he could at any time 



BEECHEY'S VOYAGE 137 

have given up the obviously hopeless attempt and left 
for a more genial climate, in which he would at least 
have had a chance of longer life ; but, remaining at 
his duty, he died at sea on the 22nd of August, and 
was buried at Petropaulovsk. 

Captain Beechey, in H.M.S. Blossom, passed through 
the strait in 1826 when sent north from the Pacific 
with a view of meeting with his old commander, 
Franklin, then on his second land journey. Beechey 
took the ship to Icy Cape, whence on the 17th of 
August he despatched the barge under the master, 
Thomas Elson, to survey the coast to the north-east- 
ward as far as he could go in three weeks, there and 
back. Elson reached his farthest on the 25th at a spit 
of land jutting out several miles from the more regular 
coast-line, the width of the neck not exceeding a mile 
and a half, broadest at its extremity, with several 
frozen lakes on it, and a village, whose natives proved 
so troublesome that it was thought unsafe to land. 
This was Point Barrow, in 71° 23' 31", longitude 
156° 21' 30", the northernmost land on the western 
half of the American continent. To the eastward 
curved a wide bay — named Elson Bay by Beechey — 
the shore-line of which joined on to the ice pack that 
encircled the horizon. Here he was within a hundred 
and sixty miles of where Franklin had turned back a 
week before. Though Beechey did not meet Franklin 
he did most useful work in these parts, for by him the 
whole coast was surveyed between Point Barrow and 
Point Rodney, to the south of Prince of Wales Cape. 

Franklin was also the cause of the appearance of 
the next British expedition in the strait. This was in 



138 BERING STRAIT 

1848, Captain Henry Kellett, in H.M.S. Herald, with 
Commander Thomas Moore in H.M.S. Plover, forming 
the western detachment of the first series of search 
expeditions. There were three detachments, one to 
follow the Erebus and Terror from the eastward, 
another under John Richardson to descend the Mac- 
kenzie and search the northern coast, the other coming 
in from the west to meet the ships should they have 
made the passage. On this duty the Herald and 
Plover were hereabouts for three seasons, the Plover 
wintering, the Herald going south when the naviga- 
tion closed. 

In October, 1826, Beechey had buried a barrel of 
flour for Franklin on the sandy point of Chamisso 
Island, ample directions for finding it being cut and 
painted on the rock, and to call the attention of the 
party to the spot the name of the Blossom was painted 
on the cliffs of Puffin Island. When the Herald was 
at Chamisso Island in 1849 Captain Kellett searched 
for this flour and found it. A considerable space was 
cleared round the cask, its chimbs were freed, and, only 
adhering to the sand by the two lower bilge staves, it 
required the united strength of two boats' crews, with 
a parbuckle and a large spar as a lever, to free it 
altogether. The sand was frozen so hard that it 
emitted sparks with every blow of the pickaxe. The 
cask itself was perfectly sound and the hoops good, 
and out of the 336 lb. of flour which it contained, 
175 lb. were as sweet and well tasted as any he had 
with him ; so good indeed was it that Captain Kellett 
gave a dinner party, at which all the pies and puddings 
were made of this flour. 





THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNC'ITS' 
(the shorter coat is that worn by the men) 3 ' 



To face page 138 



KELLETTS VOYAGE 139 

After the dinner party, on the 18th of July, the two 
vessels started for the north, being joined as soon as 
they stood from the anchorage by Robert Shedden in 
his yacht the Nancy Dawson, who at his own initiative 
had come up from Hong Kong to join in the search. 
From Wainwright Inlet Kellett sent off the boats 
under Lieutenant Pullen, two of which made the 
journey along the northern coast and up the Mac- 
kenzie, their crews thence making their way home east- 
wards to York Factory. 

When Kellett was about to commence his observa- 
tions at the inlet he drew a semicircle on the sand from 
water's edge to water's edge, and placed the boats' 
noses between its points. The natives seemed to 
understand the meaning of this line. Not one of them 
attempted to overstep it, and they squatted down and 
remained perfectly quiet and silent. When a stranger 
arrived they shouted to him, and he no sooner com- 
prehended the directions than he crept rather than 
walked to the boundary, and squatted among the rest. 
Afterwards they danced and sang and played football 
with the seamen — who stood no chance with them at 
that game — and when they had gone off, after all this 
good behaviour, it was discovered that they had been 
picking the pockets of some of the party, one losing a 
handkerchief, another a glove, and Commander Moore 
a box of percussion caps. 

The boat party had a similar experience, without the 
pocket-picking. Reaching Point Barrow they landed 
to make observations and look about for traces of the 
visit of the Blossom's boat, which they did not find. 
Their interpreter did not understand the tribe, and 



140 BERING STRAIT 

recourse was had to the universal language of signs. 
" We made a rude model of a vessel," says Lieutenant 
Hooper, " and performed sundry antics to signify what 
we were in search of, but could elicit no information, 
and so set to work at obtaining observations. We con- 
cluded that these people must have been entirely mis- 
understood. Far from evidencing any disposition to 
assail or molest us, they were most docile and well- 
behaved, agreeably disappointing us in their conduct. 
When we arrived on the hillock, all, big and little, sat 
down around us, and I amused myself by filling their 
pipes, becoming a great favourite immediately in conse- 
quence. They had among them a great many knives, 
which we feared would influence the magnet. Mr. 
Pull en therefore kindly drew ofF the crowd to a dis- 
tance, distributing among them tobacco, beads, snuff, 
etc., and much to their credit be it said, there was 
neither confusion nor contention, each taking his 
allotted portion, and seeming delighted with his good 
fortune. They took care not to come near the instru- 
ments, finding that we did not like their approach ; one 
or two indeed came towards us, but retired instantly 
when laughingly motioned back, and this should be 
considered as a display of great forbearance, inasmuch 
as their curiosity must have been highly excited. 
When the observations were concluded they were 
allowed to inspect the objects of their wonder ; then 
fast and thickly to utterance flew their expressions of 
astonishment at the — to them — novel and splendid 
instruments. The trough of quicksilver, liquid and 
restless, especially attracted them, pleasure and wonder 
were evident at the simple view, but when one or two 







h 

ill 

lllllli 



I 






(Hi r 

ill i III li 
1 ft ' I III 11 'i'i 



BERRY'S VOYAGE 141 

had permission to take some from the dish, and found 
it ever elude the grasp, their astonishment knew no 
bounds." 

From Wainwright Inlet, which is between Icy Cape 
and Point Barrow, the Herald sailed along the pack to 
the westward, reaching her highest north, 72° 51', in 
163° 48', and, on the 17th of August, Kellett landed 
on and named Herald Island in 71° 17' 45", a mass of 
granite towering nine hundred feet above the sea, under 
five miles long and three broad, inhabited mainly by 
black and white divers and yielding the collector only 
four flowering plants. Further to the west he sighted 
Wrangell Island, sailed past and named by the Ameri- 
can whaling captain, Thomas Long, in August, 1867. 

In 1881 Wrangell Island was thoroughly explored 
by another search expedition, that of Captain Berry in 
the American ship Rodgers, who was in these parts 
looking out for traces of the Jeannette. He found it 
to be, not a continent as some had supposed, but an 
island forty miles broad and sixty-six miles long, about 
thirty miles from Herald Island and eighty from the 
Siberian coast ; and on it, as on all these Siberian 
islands and the coast of Alaska, remains of the mam- 
moth were found. Examining the ice to the north- 
ward, he reached 73° 44' in 171° 30', being fifty-three 
miles further north than Kellett and twenty-four miles 
further than Collinson in 1850. Returning from the 
north to winter quarters he achieved another Arctic 
record in his ship being destroyed by fire in St. Law- 
rence Bay on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait. 

Opposite this, on the American side, from Cape 
York downwards the land trends away to the south- 



142 BERING STRAIT 

east to Norton Sound, in which are the mouths of the 
Yukon, one of the mightiest rivers of the world, its 
volume being as great as, or according to some writers 
greater than, the Mississippi. In a course of two thou- 
sand miles it runs northwards to the Arctic Circle at 
the now abandoned trading post of Fort Yukon, where 
its waters are reinforced by its tributary, the Rat or 
Porcupine, coming in from the north-east, and given 
their seaward direction to the south-west. Up this 
vast waterway in 1866 went Frederick Whymper and 
William H. Dall. 

Beginning with a sledge journey of a hundred and 
seventy miles from Unalachleet, they struck the Yukon 
on the 10th of November, gliding down a high steep 
bank on to it. Hardly a patch of clear ice was to be 
seen, the snow covering the whole extent. Accumula- 
tions of hummocks had in many places been forced on 
the surface before the river had become thoroughly 
frozen, and the water was still open, running swiftly in 
a few isolated streaks. From bank to bank was not less 
than a mile, the stream flowing among several islands. 
As they sledged up the river the dreary expanse of 
snow made them almost forget they were on a sheet of 
ice ; and, as it winds considerably, their course was 
often from bank to bank to cut off corners and bends. 
Many cliffs abutted on the stream, and islands of 
sombre green forest studded it in all directions. 

On the 15th they reached Nulato, six hundred miles 
from the mouth, where they spent the winter. Here 
they found a curious method of fishing practised all 
through the season. Early in the winter large piles or 
stakes had been driven down into the bed of the river, 




L s. 



UP THE YUKON 143 

and to these were affixed wickerwork traps like eel-pots 
jon a large scale, oblong holes being kept open over 
them by frequently breaking the ice. This was cold 
work, for the temperature ran low. " In November 
and December," says Whymper, " I succeeded in 
making sketches of the fort and neighbourhood when 
the temperature was as low as thirty degrees below 
zero. It was done, it need not be said, with difficulty, 
and often by instalments. Between every five strokes 
of the pencil, I ran about to exercise myself or went 
into our quarters for warmth. The use of water- 
colours was of course impracticable — except when I 
could keep a pot of warm water on a small fire by my 
side — a thing done by me on two or three occasions, 
when engaged at a distance from the post. Even 
inside the house the spaces near the windows, as well as 
the floor, were often below freezing point. Once, for- 
getful of the fact, I mixed some colours up with water 
that had just stood near the oven, and wetting a small 
brush commenced to apply it to my drawing block. 
Before it reached the paper it was covered with a skin 
of ice, and simply scratched the surface, and I had to 
give up for the time being." 

On the 12th of May the Nulato River broke up and 
ran out on the top of the Yukon ice for more than a 
mile up-stream ; and in a few days the ice of the main 
river was coming down in a steady flow at a rate of 
five or six knots, surging into mountains as it met 
with obstacles, and grinding and crashing and carrying 
ill before it, whole trees and banks being swept away 
on its victorious march, the water rising fourteen feet 
ibove the winter level. On the 26th Whymper and 



144 BERING STRAIT 

Dall started with two Indians and a steersman in a 
skin canoe, the river still full of ice, and navigation 
difficult. They had proceeded but a short distance 
when they came to bends, round which logs and ice 
were sweeping at a great rate, so that it was necessary 
for a man to stand in the bows of the canoe, with a 
pole shod at one end with iron, to push away the masses 
of ice and tangle of driftwood. They could often feel 
the ice and logs rolling and scraping under the canoe ; 
and it was not the thickness of a plank between them 
and destruction, but that of a piece of sealskin a 
tenth of an inch thick. 

On the 7th of June they were two hundred and 
forty miles above Nulato, at the junction of the 
Tanana, the furthest point reached by the Russians, 
and soon were in a part abounding with moose owing 
to their seeking refuge in the stream from the millions 
of mosquitoes. Here the Indian hunters were busy, 
not wasting powder and shot, but manoeuvring round 
the swimming deer in their birch-bark canoes until they 
tired the victim out ; and then stealthily approaching, 
securing it with a stab from their knives. 

After twenty-six laborious days against the stream 
they reached Fort Yukon, the then furthest outpost 
of the Hudson's Bay Company, six hundred miles 
from Nulato, and, of course, managed and victualled 
from the east. Here the amount of peltry was 
astonishing, the fur-room of the fort containing 
thousands of marten skins, hanging from the beams, 
and huge piles of common furs lying around, together 
with a considerable number of foxes, black and silver- 
grey, and many skins of the wolverine, thought so 



rv 



FORT YUKON 145 

much more of by the Indians than by any one else 
that they are used as a medium of exchange. All 
these furs were brought in from the surrounding 
districts, far and near, and traded for goods, as widely 
distributed, among the native tribes whose repre- 
sentatives gathered at the fort in such a miscellaneous 
crowd that perhaps half a dozen dialects were heard in 
a morning. 

In the crowd the busiest and most prominent were 
the primitive Tananas, gay with feathers and painted 
faces, looking like survivals among the local Kutchins 
and the Kutchins of the upper river, the Birch River 
men, and the Rat River men by whom the skins were 
brought from the natives of the northern coast, as 
were the messages from the Franklin search parties. 
Indians were all of these, distinguishable by their 
wearing the hyaqua or tooth-shell (Dentalium entails) 
through the septum of the nose, while the Mahlemut 
wears a bone on each side of the mouth, a practice 
common with all the Innuit, or Eskimo tribes, from 
the Aliaska Peninsula to Point Barrow, unless some 
other form of labret happens to be the local fashion. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

The Hudson's Bay Company — Samuel Hearne — His journey down tt 
Coppermine River — The North West Fur Company — Sir Alexande 
Mackenzie — His journey down the Mackenzie — Sir John Franklin's firs 
land journey — Fort Enterprise — Back's journey to Athabasca — The rapid 
of the Coppermine — Point Turnagain reached — The Wilberforce Falls- 
The terrible crossing of the Barren Grounds — Franklin's second lai 
journey — Richardson's voyage to the eastward — Discovers Wollastc 
Land and Dolphin and Union Strait — Franklin's voyage to Return Reef- 
Back's journey down the Great Fish River — Discovers Montreal Islar. 
and King William Land — The Parry Falls — Sir George Simpson — Pete 
Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson — Exploration of the coast between 
Return Reef and Point Barrow — Simpson advances beyond Point Tun 
again and discovers Victoria Land and Dease Strait — Their second voyag 
down the Coppermine — Discovery of Simpson Strait — Reach the Great 
Fish River — Their farthest east — Complete the survey of the northern 
coast between Boothia and Bering Strait— The first to find the North-West 
Passage. 

FOR two elks and two black beavers, paid yearly 
whensoever the King of England entered their 
estate, the Hudson's Bay Company were, in 1670, 
presented by Charles II with the northern part of the 
American mainland, thus ensuring an ample stretch of 
British territory along the passage to the South Sea. 
But the company soon ceased to be interested in any 
such passage, finding quite enough to do in developing 
the very profitable fur trade of their vast possessions. 
With the exception of John Knight's disastrous voyage 
to Marble Island in 1719, whatever attempts at dis- 
coveries there may have been were kept quiet for fear 

146 




MAHLEMUT MAN- 



To face page 146 



HEARNE AND MACKENZIE 147 

of aiding their rivals the French to the south, who 
were fostering the trade in the region of the great 
lakes ; and not until the French dominion ended in 
1763 and the Frenchmen's interests were passing to 
an opposition British company was any effort made to 
explore the coast of the Polar Sea. 

Owing to Indian reports of rich deposits of native 
copper and an abundance of fur-bearing animals, 
Samuel Hearne, once a midshipman in the Royal 
Navy, was sent by the company in 1769 to explore 
to the west and north. After a journey of thirteen 
hundred miles to the west he found the Coppermine 
River and the Great Slave Lake, and he traced the 
river to its mouth and emerged on the northern shore, 
being the first known white man to see the Arctic 
Ocean between the Boothia Peninsula and Bering 
Strait. Among other things he was instructed to dis- 
cover a north-west passage, and he certainly did some- 
thing definite towards it by showing there was open 
water so much further west ; but, though he suspected 
it, he was unable to prove that the northernmost point 
of the continent was in the unexplored country between 
the Coppermine and Hudson Bay. 

In 1783 the North West Fur Company was formally 
established, and after a severe struggle obtained, owing 
mainly to the efforts of Alexander Mackenzie, a fair 
share of the trade in the west of the region controlled 
by the Hudson's Bay people. Mackenzie was at Fort 
Chippewyan, on Lake Athabasca, and thence he was 
sent in 1789 on an exploring voyage to the north. In 
four birch -bark canoes, one of his party being an 
Indian known as English Chief, who had been with 



148 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

Heame on his journey to the Coppermine, he started 
down the Great Slave River into the Great Slave 
Lake. After spending twenty days in crossing and 
exploring this vast sheet of water, he entered the large 
river now bearing his name, and down it amid many 
dangers and difficulties, overcome by skill, persuasion, 
force, good humour or good fortune, he reached the 
sea on the 14th of July. He camped on Whale 
Island, the name being given owing to one of the men 
sighting a great many animals in the water, which, he 
at first supposed to be pieces of ice. " However," says 
Mackenzie, " I was awakened to resolve the doubts 
which had taken place respecting this extraordinary 
appearance. I immediately perceived that they were 
whales ; and having ordered the canoe to be prepared, 
we embarked in pursuit of them. It was indeed a 
very wild and unreflecting enterprise, and it was a very 
fortunate circumstance that we failed in our attempt 
to overtake them, as a stroke from the tail of one of 
these enormous fish would have dashed the canoe to 
pieces. We may, perhaps, have been indebted to the 
foggy weather for our safety, as it prevented us from 
continuing our pursuit. Our guide informed us that 
they are the same kind of fish which are the principal 
food of the Eskimos, and they were frequently seen as 
large as our canoe. The part of them which appeared 
above the water was altogether white, and they were 
much larger than the largest porpoise " — being evidently 
belugas {Delphinapterus leucas). 

Satisfied with a short canoe voyage on the sea, he 
returned to the river and made his way back to the ji 
fort, arriving there in the middle of September. He 



FRANKLIN'S FIRST LAND JOURNEY 149 

had thus proved the existence of the sea twenty 
degrees further west than Hearne had done. Three 
years afterwards he started on his notable journey to 
the Pacific at Cape Menzies, facing Princess Royal 
Island, being the first white man to cross the Rocky 
Mountains, and, as he had reached Fort Chippewyan 
by way of Montreal, the first to cross North America 
above the Gulf of Mexico. 

Another of Hearne's Indians accompanied Franklin 
on his first land journey in 1819, the object of which 
was to explore the coast between Hearne's farthest and 
Hudson Bay, thus filling in the gap in which the 
assumed northern promontory was to be found. 
Franklin, who was sent out by the British Govern- 
ment, had with him, as surgeon and naturalist, Dr., 
afterwards Sir, John Richardson, to whom as a boy 
Robert Burns had lent Spenser's Faerie Queene, a 
naval surgeon with a distinguished record, who while 
on half-pay had studied botany and mineralogy at 
Edinburgh. Like another member of the expedition, 
George Back, who had been with Franklin in the 
Trent and Dorothea voyage, he was destined to gain 
a great reputation among Arctic explorers. With 
Back was another midshipman, Robert Hood, whose 
fate it was to be murdered by an Iroquois half-breed 
who, through want of food, betook himself to canni- 
balism. 

Landing at York Factory, in Hudson Bay, after an 
exciting voyage, on the 30th of August, Franklin, 
disregarding local advice, pushed on across the continent 
during the winter, arriving at Fort Chippewyan on the 
26th of March, the losses and trying experiences of 



150 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

the long journey being mainly due to the rigours of 
the climate at that time of year ; and thence, in July, 
the party followed Mackenzie's route to Fort Provi- 
dence on Great Slave Lake. Here they were joined 
by Mr. Wentzel, of the North West Company. 

Starting for the north on the 2nd of August in four 
canoes, they were joined next day at the mouth of the 
Yellow Knife by a band of Indians, under a chief 
named Akaitcho, in seventeen canoes. The Indians 
were to guide the party and supply them with food by 
hunting and fishing on the way, but game and fish 
proved scarce— and scarcer owing to the poorness of 
the Indian marksmanship — provisions were short and 
portages long, so that the journey, which soon led 
across a series of lakes, was pursued under toilsome 
and hazardous conditions until it ended at Winter 
Lake in 64° 30', where it became necessary to winter 
in a log house built by Wentzel, and named Fort 
Enterprise. The site was delightful : a hillside amid 
trees three feet in diameter at the roots, the view in 
front bounded at a distance of three miles by round- 
backed hills, to the eastward and westward the Winter 
and Roundrock Lakes connected by the Winter River, 
its banks clothed with pines and ornamented with a 
profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs. 

In a few weeks, however, the weather became so 
severe that, according to Franklin, the trees froze to 
their very centres and became as hard as stones, on 
which some of the axes were broken daily, until but 
one was left. And though at first the reindeer appeared 
in numbers, their visits lasted only for a short time, 
and the party, short of tobacco for the Canadian 



BACK'S JOURNEY TO FORT CHIPPEWYAN 151 

voyageurs and of ammunition for the Indians, had so 
poor an outlook that it became necessary to accept 
Back's proposal to return to the forts and bring on 
supplies which had not been forwarded as promised ; 
the failure being due to the journey, unlike the 
successful ventures of Hearne and Mackenzie, being 
pushed on regardless of climatal conditions, and, in 
some degree, to the rivalry between the two fur com- 
panies which were amalgamated while the expedition 
was in progress. 

Back set out accompanied by Wentzel and two 
Canadians and two Indians and their wives, crossing 
lakes frozen just hard enough to bear them, going wide 
circuits to avoid those which were open, amid mist and 
fog and storm, over rugged, bare country, through 
dense woods and snow-covered swamps, rafting across 
a river with pine branches for paddles, until Fort 
Providence was reached. From here he sent back 
Belanger with letters and a hundred bullets he pro- 
cured on loan. Belanger arrived at Fort Enterprise 
on the 23rd of October alone ; he had walked con- 
stantly for the last six-and-thirty hours through a 
storm, his locks were matted with snow, and he was 
encrusted with ice from head to foot, so that he was 
scarcely recognised when he slipped in through the 
doorway. 

At Fort Providence Back had to wait until the 
Great Slave Lake was frozen over. On the 18th of 
November he observed two mock moons at equal 
distances from the central one, the whole encircled by 
a halo, the colour of the inner edge of the large circle 
a light red inclining to a faint purple ; and two days 



152 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

afterwards two parhelia were observable, with a halo, 
the colours of the inner edge of the circle a bright 
carmine and red -lake intermingled with a rich yellow 
forming a purplish orange, the outer edge being a pale 
gamboge. On the 7th of December he left, sledging 
across the lake before the wind, for the North West fort 
on Moose Deer Island, and rinding at the Hudson's 
Bay fort, also on the island, five packages of belated 
supplies and two Eskimo interpreters on their way to 
Franklin. 

Here he was told that nothing could be spared at 
Fort Chippewyan, that goods had never been trans- 
ported so far in the winter season, that the same dogs 
could not go and return, and that from having to walk 
constantly on snow-shoes he would suffer a great deal 
of misery and fatigue. Nevertheless he undertook the 
journey in dog-sledges with a Canadian and an Indian, 
leaving Wentzel behind. At times the weather was so 
cold that they had to run to keep themselves warm, 
and, owing to the snow, the feet of the dogs became so 
raw that an endeavour was made to fit them with 
shoes. With legs and ankles so swollen that it was 
painful to drag the snow-shoes after him, Back hurried 
on, reaching Fort Chippewyan on the 2nd of January 
to find that he and all Franklin's party had been 
reported to have been killed by Eskimos. Here he had 
to wait a month, and then, with an instalment of what 
he wanted, he set out on his return, arriving at Fort 
Enterprise on St. Patrick's Day after a memorable 
journey of over a thousand miles. 

During his absence he was told that the cold had 
been so severe that Hood had found accurate observing 



THE RAPIDS OF THE COPPERMINE 153 

difficult owing to the sextant having changed its error 
and the glasses lost their parallelism from the contrac- 
tion of the brass, a circumstance, combined with the 
crystallisation of the mercury of the artificial horizon, 
that might account for some of the diversity of results 
obtained by Arctic navigators. And Richardson had 
to tell him of an early discovery that when fishing and 
the hands get cold by hauling in the line, the best way 
to warm them is to put them in the water ; and how the 
fish had frozen as they were taken out of the water so 
that by a blow or two of the hatchet they were easily 
split open, leaving the intestines removable in one lump, 
and yet that these much -frozen fish retained their 
vitality so that he had seen a thawed carp recover so 
far as to leap about with much vigour after it had been 
frozen for thirty-six hours. 

On the 14th of June Fort Enterprise was left, and 
on the 25th the expedition began to cross Point Lake 
on the way to the Coppermine, the river being reached 
through Rocknest Lake on the 30th. Down the river 
they paddled, taking the rapids as they went— in one 
place three miles of them on end. " We were carried 
along with extraordinary rapidity, shooting over large 
stones, upon which a single stroke would have been 
destructive to the canoes ; and we were also in danger 
of breaking them, from the want of the long poles 
which lie along their bottoms and equalise their cargoes, 
as they plunged very much, and on one occasion the 
first canoe was almost filled with the waves ; but there 
was no receding after we had once launched into the 
stream, and our safety depended on the skill and dex- 
terity of the bowmen and steersmen." 



154 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

There were rapids day by day affording almost every 
possible chance of wreck except that due to driftwood 
the two worst being one where the stream descends foi 
three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow am 
crooked channel which it has cut through the fool 
of a hill of five hundred or six hundred feet high, 
confined between perpendicular cliffs resembling stone 
walls varying in height from eighty to a hundred ane 
fifty feet, on which lies a mass of fine sand ; the bod^ 
of the river pent within this narrow chasm dashing 
furiously round the projecting rocky columns as it dis- 
charges itself at the northern extremity in a sheet oi 
foam. The other being where the river flows betweei 
lofty stone cliffs, reddish clay rocks and shelving banks 
of white clay, and is full of shoals. Franklin's people 
had entered this rapid before they were aware of it, 
and the steepness of the cliffs prevented them fro] 
landing, so that they owed their preservation to the swift- 
ness of their descent. Two waves made a complete 
breach over the canoes ; a third would probably have 
filled and overset them, which would have proved fatal 
to all on board. This Escape Rapid, as it was named, 
was, as it were, the gate into the territory of the Eskimos 
who were soon met with in small parties all the wa] 
down to the sea. It was passed on the 15th of July 
three days afterwards the Indians bade farewell to the 
expedition in the morning, and in the afternoon the 
canoes were afloat on the Arctic Ocean. 

From the river mouth Wentzel returned, as arranged, 
with despatches, taking with him a number of voyageurs 
and others, thus reducing the party to twenty in all ii 
two canoes. In these Franklin, nearly two years after 



s 




KUTCHIN INDIANS 



To face page 154 



:rfe 



THE WILBERFORCE FALLS 155 

he had landed in America, went on his voyage to the 
eastward to enter at last on the work he had been sent 
to do. But the survey of this lofty rocky coast was no 
easy matter ; the sea was rough, the weather tempestu- 
ous, the canoes were lightly built and only suited for 
river work, and, in short, it was a most risky enterprise. 
Tracing the shore of Coronation Gulf and coasting up 
and out of Bathurst Inlet, Franklin reached Point Turn- 
again in 109° 25' W., at the entrance of Dease Strait, on 
the 16th of August, 1821. Though the voyage had 
extended over only six and a half degrees of longitude, 
he had sailed 555 geographical miles ; and then, as his 
resources did not permit of his going further or of his 
returning to the Coppermine, and in his own words 
" Our scanty stock of provisions rendering it necessary 
to make for a nearer place," he, on the 22nd, turned 
back to ascend the Hood River. 

Here they soon reached the Wilberforce Falls, 
beautiful and remarkable, but not easy of navigation. 
" In the evening," says Franklin in his journal, " we 
encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through 
which the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls 
of this chasm are upwards of two hundred feet high, 
quite perpendicular, and in some places only a few yards 
apart. The river precipitates itself into it over a rock 
forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to 
each other. The upper fall is about sixty feet high, 
and the lower one at least one hundred, but perhaps 
considerably more, for the narrowness of the chasm 
into which it fell prevented us from seeing its bottom 
and we could merely discern the top of the spray far 
beneath our feet. The lower fall is divided into two by 



156 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

an insulated column of rock which rises about forty 
feet above it." 

As the river above the falls appeared too rapid and 
shallow for the large canoes they were taken to pieces, 
and two smaller ones built from their materials. The 
voyage in these lasted but three days, when the river 
was abandoned as trending too far to the west, and the 
party, carrying the canoes, proceeded overland to Point 
Lake on their struggle of starvation across the Barren 
Grounds. For days they had nothing to eat but lichens 
— species of Gyrophora or Umhilicaiia known as tripe- 
de-roche — a diet varied with leather, burnt bones and 
skins, an occasional ptarmigan, and, once, a musk ox, 
until they were so weak that when a herd of reindeer 
went strolling past they had not strength enough to 
shoot at them. 

The tragedy need not be lingered over. Back was 
again sent for help, and, finding no stores at Fort 
Enterprise, was on his way to Fort Providence when he 
fell in with Akaitcho, who at once hurried to the rescue ; 
and on the 14th of July, 1822, Franklin, Richardson, 
Back, and Hepburn the seaman, who had behaved as a 
hero all through, returned to York Factory after a 
three years' journey, fraught with peril and horror, by 
land and water, of over six thousand three hundred 
statute miles. 

After he had been at home a year, Franklin suggested 
that another attempt should be made to survey the 
northern coast while Parry was at work in search of the 
North- West Passage. The suggestion was accepted. 
Accompanied by Richardson and Back, and by E. N. 
Kendall as assistant surveyor — who had been out with 



FRANKLIN'S SECOND LAND JOURNEY 157 

Captain Lyon in the same capacity — and by Thomas 
Drummond as assistant naturalist, he left Liverpool on 
the 26th of February, 1825. 

Taught by experience, the expedition was better 
managed in every way. Instead of driving ahead 
regardless of the season or the trade routine, the 
ordinary conditions of local travel were kept in view 
throughout, and the results were more in proportion 
to the effort. Three boats were specially built at 
Woolwich on Franklin's design and under Buchan's 
superintendence. They were of mahogany with timbers 
of ash, both ends alike, steerable by oar or rudder, the 
largest 26 ft. by 5 ft. 4 ins., the two others 24 ft. by 
4 ft. 10 ins., and with them Colonel Pasley's portable 
boat, known as the Walnut Shell from its shape, 9 ft. 
long and half as wide, with frames of ash fastened with 
thongs and covered with canvas. The canvas was 
"waterproofed by Mr. Macintosh, of Glasgow " — the 
first instance of its use — and for the first time also what 
we know as macintosh coats and overalls were issued 
as part of the outfit, the process having been patented 
in 1824. 

The boats and stores were sent on ahead by way of 
York Factory in 1824, and Franklin and his party, 
travelling by New York and the lakes, caught them up 
on the Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June. 
With them were several old friends, not the least 
delighted being the two Eskimo interpreters, Augustus 
and Ooligbuck, who were to be of the utmost import- 
ance throughout. On the 8th of August they had got 
along so well that they were at the junction of the Bear 
Lake River with the Mackenzie. Here Back and Peter 



158 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

Warren Dease of the Hudson's Bay Company, who 
had joined the expedition to look after the local 
arrangements, were sent off to build a house to winter 
in on the banks of the Great Bear Lake, in Keith's Bay, 
where the river leaves it ; Richardson also left to explore 
the northern shore of the lake, and Franklin and 
Kendall continuing down the Mackenzie reached the 
sea before the week was out in less than six months 
from their departure from Liverpool. And on the 5th 
of September they had returned upstream and were at 
their winter quarters at the new house on the lake, 
which Back had named Fort Franklin, to find that 
Richardson had been along the northern shore and 
noted as being the nearest point to the Coppermine the 
entrance of the river he had named after Dease, which 
was to be of so much service to him later on. 

During the winter another boat, the Reliance, was 
built on the lines of the Lion, the largest of the Wool- 
wich boats, and leaving Dease to complete the stores 
for another comfortable winter, the expedition started 
on the 24th of June. At Point Separation, at the 
head of the Mackenzie delta, Franklin in the Lion 
with Back in the Reliance — our old friend Robert 
Spinks being his coxswain — took the western arm, and 
Richardson in the Dolphin and Kendall in the Union, 
carrying the Walnut Shell with them, took the eastern 
arm. 

Richardson, with a few more or less threatening 
encounters with the Eskimos, ending fairly well owing 
to Ooligbuck, and in constant danger of wreck avoided 
by careful navigation, rounded Cape Bathurst in 70° 36' 
and discovered Wollaston Land, the coast-line of which 




To face page 15S 



RICHARDSON'S JOURNEY 159 

they left continuing to the east, when they reached 
Coronation Gulf and, on the 8th of August, entered 
the Coppermine, and thus filled in the gap of nine 
hundred and two statute miles from Point Separation. 
Leaving the Dolphin and Union at Bloody Fall on that 
river, it being impossible to take them further, the 
expedition, carrying the Walnut Shell with them, pro- 
ceeded along the banks, but finding they had no use 
for the portable boat, owing to the shallowness of the 
stream, they soon abandoned it, and in 67° 13', where 
the river is nearest to the north-eastern arm of Great 
Bear Lake, the Coppermine was left and the course 
laid across the Barren Grounds for Dease River. This 
was reached three days afterwards, Richardson being 
met at its mouth by Dease's people on the 24th of 
August. 

Franklin had similar experiences with the Eskimos, 
and was as deeply indebted to Augustus for his tact 
and bravery in dealing with them. Coasting along to 
the westward, hindered by ice, bad weather and fog, 
and tormented by mosquitoes, his progress was much 
slower than that of Richardson. Delayed for some 
days on or about Foggy Island, he had to give up his 
intention of reaching Bering Strait, and not knowing 
that Elson with the barge of the Blossom had come as 
far east as Point Barrow, he gave the name of Cape 
Beechey to the westernmost headland in sight, and 
leaving Return Reef in 148° 52' on the 18th of August, 
after covering six hundred and ten statute miles through 
parts not previously discovered, began his voyage back 
to Fort Franklin, where he arrived on the 21st of 
September. Meanwhile Richardson had gone off to 






160 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

explore the Great Slave Lake, whence Drummond had 
started on his journey among the Rockies ; and, being 
unable to get away till another winter had passed, 
both Franklin and Richardson landed in England in 
September, 1827, after an important and fruitful ex- 
pedition that had no death-roll. 

Back was again in these regions in 1833 on his 
expedition in search of Sir John Ross. Reaching the 
Great Slave Lake, he built Fort Reliance at its north- 
eastern corner and began the long winter there on the 
5th of November. Soon afterwards Akaitcho put in 
an appearance, and expressed his intention— which he 
did his best to fulfil — of being of as much assistance 
as he could ; and later on Augustus made his way 
across country to offer his services, but, either exhausted 
by suffering and privation, or caught in a snowstorm, 
he died alone near the Riviere a Jean. 

Temperatures ranging from 50 to 70 minus were of 
frequent occurrence, and, on one occasion Back, after 
washing his face within a yard of the fire, had his hair 
clotted with ice before he had time to dry it. Every 
animal was driven away from the neighbourhood by 
the cold, except a solitary raven which swept once 
round the house and then winged his flight to the 
westward. On the 25th of April a messenger arrived 
at the fort with the news of the safe return of Sir 
John Ross to England, but Back determined to pro- 
ceed with the journey for exploring purposes, taking 
one boat instead of two, and, with Richard King the 
surgeon, and eight men, he started for the Great Fish 
River on the 8th of July. 

The voyage was a hazardous and adventurous one. 



-£S£3 







BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FI*3H RIVER 

To face page 160 



BACK ON THE GREAT FISH RIVER 161 

For five hundred and thirty geographical miles the 
river was found to run through an iron-ribbed country 
without a single tree on the whole line of its banks, 
expanding into fine large lakes with clear horizons, 
most embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into 
falls, cascades, and rapids, to the number of no less 
than eighty-three, pouring its waters into the Polar 
Sea in latitude 67° 11' and longitude 94° 30'; so that 
his explorations on the northern coast were confined to 
a section further east than Point Turnagain. 

The expedition met with its greatest danger at 
Escape Rapid, between Lake Macdougall and Lake 
Franklin, on the 25th of July. Here the stream was 
broken by a mile of heavy and dangerous rapids. The 
boat was lightened, and every care taken to avoid 
accident ; but so overwhelming was the rush and whirl 
of the water, that she, and consequently those in her, 
were twice in imminent peril of being plunged into 
one of the gulfs formed in the rocks and hollows. It 
was in one of these places, which are fall, rapid, and 
eddy within a few yards, that the boat owed its safety 
to an unintentional disobedience of the steersman's 
directions. 

The power of the water so far exceeded whatever 
had been witnessed on any of the other rivers that the 
precautions used elsewhere were weak and unavailing. 
McKay, the steersman, was endeavouring to clear a fall 
and some sunken rocks on the left, but the man to 
whom he spoke misunderstood him, and did exactly the 
reverse ; and then, seeing the danger, the steersman 
swept the stern round ; instantly the boat was caught 
by an eddy to the right, which, snapping an oar, twirled 



162 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

her irresistibly broadside on ; so that for a moment it 
seemed uncertain whether the boat was to be hurled 
into the hollow of the fall, or dashed stern foremost on 
the sunken rocks. Of how it happened no account can 
be given, but her head swung inshore towards the beach 
and thereby gave an opportunity for some of the men 
to spring into the water and by their united strength 
rescue her from her perilous position. Had the man 
to whom the first order was given understood and acted 
on it no human power could have saved the crew from 
being buried in the abyss. Nor yet could any blame be 
justly attached to the steersman, who had never been so 
situated before and whose coolness and self-possession 
never in this imminent peril forsook him. At the 
awful moment of suspense, when one of the crew with 
less nerve than his companions began to cry aloud to 
Heaven for aid, McKay in a still louder voice ex- 
claimed, "Is this a time for praying ? Pull your star- 
board oar." Never could a reminder that labor are est 
orare have been more opportune. 

On the 1st of August Montreal Island was reached. 
Nine days afterwards a log of driftwood, nine feet long 
and nine inches in diameter, jocularly described as a 
piece of the North Pole, was found on the beach, 
which, as there are no trees on the Fish River or the 
Coppermine, Captain Back was of opinion must 
have come from the Mackenzie and drifted eastward, so 
that he was on the main line of the land. The in- 
ference, confirmed by the appearance of a whale, was 
correct, but, misled, perhaps, by hilly islands, he missed 
the channel through which it had come, blocking it, 
in the manner of John Ross, with a range of mountains 



THE PARRY FALLS 163 

that does not exist. Though he reached Mount Barrow 
and mistook the head of Simpson Strait for an inlet, 
thus failing to find one of the north-west passages, he 
discovered and named King William Land and sighted 
Point Booth at its eastern extremity. An attempt to 
reach Point Turnagain to the westward and thus link 
up with Franklin's farthest east, in which he might 
have discovered the passage, proving impracticable 
owing to the bogginess of the ground, Back began his 
return from King William Land in latitude 68° 13', 
longitude 94° 58', and entered on a wearisome journey- 
up the river and lakes he had come down, meeting 
with a party from Fort Reliance on the 17th of 
September. 

A week after, when within a couple of days of the 
fort, on that " small but abominable river " the Ah-hel- 
dessy from Artillery Lake, Back discovered the Anderson 
Falls. Toiling along over the mountains, every man 
with a seventy-five-pound package on his back, he had 
not proceeded more than six or seven miles when, observ- 
ing the spray rising from another fall, he was induced to 
visit it and was well consoled for having left the boat 
behind. " From the only point," says Back, " at which 
the greater part of it was visible, we could distinguish 
the river coming sharp round a rock, and falling into 
an upper basin almost concealed by intervening rocks ; 
whence it broke in one vast sheet into a chasm between 
four and five hundred feet deep, yet in appearance so 
narrow that we fancied we could almost step across it. 
Out of this the spray rose in misty columns several 
hundred feet above our heads ; but as it was impossible 
to see the main fall from the side on which we were, in 



164 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

the following spring I paid a second visit to it, 
approaching from the western bank. The road to it, 
which I then traversed in snow-shoes, was fatiguing in 
the extreme, and scarcely less dangerous ; for, to say- 
nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and 
deep snow in the valleys, we had sometimes to creep 
along the narrow shelves of precipices slippery with the 
frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a sight that 
well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a 
strong resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg 
Harbour, Spitsbergen. The whole face of the rocks 
forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue, 
green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles ; 
and there were, moreover, caverns, fissures, and over- 
hanging ledges in all imaginable varieties of form, so 
curious and beautiful as to surpass anything of which I 
had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches 
were extremely hazardous, nor could we obtain a per- 
fect view of the lower fall, in consequence of the pro- 
jection of the western cliffs. At the lowest position 
we were able to attain, we were still more than a 
hundred feet above the level of the river beneath ; and 
this, instead of being narrow enough to step across, as it 
had seemed from the opposite heights, was found to be 
at least two hundred feet wide. The colour of the water 
varied from a very light to a very dark green ; and the 
spray, which spread a dimness above, was thrown up in 
clouds of light grey. Niagara, Wilberforce Falls on 
Hood River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake 
Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls — although they may 
each charm the eye with dread — are not to be compared 
to this for splendour of effect. It was the most im- 



SIR GEORGE SIMPSON 165 

posing spectacle I had ever witnessed ; and, as its berg- 
like appearance brought to mind associations of another 
scene, I bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated 
navigator, Sir Edward Parry, and called it Parry's 
Falls." 

Back, like Franklin, owed much of the success of 
his expedition to the cordial help of the Governor of 
the Hudson's Bay Company, George, afterwards Sir 
George, Simpson. Ever the fastest of travellers in the 
north, Simpson had, in 1828, made a 3260-mile canoe 
voyage from Hudson Bay to the Pacific, passing the 
Rockies through canyons previously untried, and 
slipping down mountain torrents and through unknown 
rapids at such speed that hostile Indians let him pass 
in sheer amazement ; and all his life he was dis- 
tinguished for similar energy and celerity. When it 
became clear that the British Government had no 
immediate intention of completing the survey of the 
northern coast, Simpson organised an expedition at the 
Company's expense to undertake the task, and entrusted 
the leadership to Dease, who had done such excellent 
work for Franklin ; and with Dease he associated his 
own nephew, Thomas Simpson, in no way inferior to 
his uncle in energy, speediness, or decision of character, 
being in fact one of our very best explorers, Arctic or 
otherwise. 

Thomas Simpson, Master of Arts of Aberdeen and a 
winner of the Huttonian, began characteristically by 
starting off to Fort Garry — now Winnipeg- — with a 
view, as he says, "to refresh and extend my astro- 
nomical practice which had for some years been inter- 
rupted by avocations of a very different nature " ; and 



166 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

thence, in the winter, making his way to Fort Chippe- 
wyan, a journey of 1277 miles, joining Dease there 
more than a month before he was expected. Two 
boats were built, light clinker craft of 24 ft. keel and 
6 ft. beam, adapted for shallow navigation by their 
small draught, both alike and honoured with the 
classical names of the heavenly twins, Castor and 
Pottuoc, each boat provided with a small oiled canvas 
canoe and portable wooden frame. Of one, the steers- 
man was the redoubtable James McKay — " Pull your 
starboard oar ! " — and of the other, George Sinclair, 
Back's bowman ; and one of the bowmen was Felix, 
who had been with Franklin in 1826. All told, the 
expedition numbered fourteen. 

Leaving Fort Chippewyan on the 1st of June, 1837, 
they reached Bear Lake River on the 3rd of July, and 
six days afterwards were out on the sea. On the 23rd 
of July they camped at Return Reef, that is to say 
they had traversed the whole extent of Franklin's 
survey in a fortnight, and not without danger from 
the ice and losing much time by doubling the floes, 
however far they extended seawards. Once Simpson's 
boat, which was of course leading, was only saved from 
destruction by throwing out everything it contained 
upon the floating masses. By means of portages made 
from one fragment to another, the oars forming the 
perilous bridges, and after repeated risks of boats, men, 
and baggage being separated by the motion of the ice, 
they succeeded with much labour in collecting the 
whole equipment on one floe, which, being covered 
with water, formed a sort of wet dock. There they 
hauled up the boats, momentarily liable to be over- 



THOMAS SIMPSON 167 

whelmed by the turning over of the ice, three miles 
from land, with the fog settled round them throughout 
the inclement night. 

Continuing westwards along new country, they 
reached and named Cape George Simpson (after the 
Governor) and, a little further on, Boat Extreme, 
where, from the coldness of the weather and the inter- 
minable ice, the further advance of the boats appeared 
to be so hopeless that Dease agreed to stay in charge 
of them while Simpson with five men, including 
McKay and Felix, pushed ahead for Point Barrow on 
foot. Passing McKay Inlet and Sinclair River, named 
after the two steersmen, an Eskimo camp was reached, 
where Simpson exchanged his tin plate for a platter 
made out of a mammoth tusk, and borrowed an oomiak 
which floated in about half a foot of water. In this 
useful skin boat the journey was resumed to Point 
Barrow, and on the 4th of August the survey com- 
pleted between Franklin's farthest and Elson's. 

The winter was passed at the mouth of the Dease 
River, on Great Bear Lake, where Fort Confidence 
had been built ready for the expedition on its return. 
On the 6th of June, 1888, a start for the coast was 
made by the Coppermine route, that river being reached 
on the 22nd, and its descent accomplished, on the spring 
flood, in nine days. But it was a bad season, and the 
navigation was so hampered by ice that no start was 
made to the eastward until the 17th of July. At 
Boathaven, in 109° 20', Simpson again left the boats 
and went ahead with Sinclair and six others who had 
not been to Point Barrow. Passing Franklin's farthest 
at Point Turnagain, he kept on for a hundred miles 



168 THE AMERICAN MAINLAND 

along the whole length of Dease Strait, discovering 
and naming Victoria Land, reaching Beaufort River 
beyond Cape Alexander, and sighting an open sea to 
the eastward. From here, in 106° 3', the return began ; 
and by many devices and the unfailing skill of McKay 
and Sinclair, the two boats were taken up the Copper- 
mine stream, falls and rapids and all, to the nearest 
point to Fort Confidence, where they were hauled up 
in readiness for next year. 

On the 22nd of June, 1839, the boats again left for 
the sea ; and they were run down to Bloody Fall with- 
out a stoppage in eleven hours. Again there were 
fourteen all told in them, but this time one of the men 
was Ooglibuck, who had come specially from Ungava in 
Labrador, in the wonderful time of three months less 
eight days, to join the expedition which was to meet 
with great success and accomplish an Arctic boat 
journey of over sixteen hundred statute miles. 

Entirely blocked until the 3rd of July, and hindered 
by ice difficulties all the way, the boats did not reach 
the previous year's farthest until the 28th of July. 
On the 11th of August, through an outlet only three 
miles wide, they passed into the much-desired eastern 
sea. " That glorious sight," says Simpson, after whom 
the strait is named, " was first beheld by myself from 
the top of one of the high limestone islands, and I had 
the satisfaction of announcing it to some of the men 
who, incited by curiosity, followed me thither. The 
joyful news was soon conveyed to Mr. Dease, who was 
with the boats at the end of the island, about half a 
mile off." On the continent and on King William 
Land, where Franklin's men were in time coming to 



DISCOVERY OF SIMPSON STRAIT 169 

perish of starvation, reindeer were seen browsing on the 
scanty herbage among the shingle. A terrible thunder- 
storm followed, and then, doubling a very sharp point 
on the 13th, Simpson landed and saw before him a 
sandy desert. It was Back's Point Sir C. Ogle that he 
had at length reached. Away in the distance was the 
Great Fish River, and three days afterwards the party 
were encamped on Montreal Island, where McKay led 
the way to the provisions and gunpowder deposited by 
Back among the rocks. 

The expedition had performed its allotted task, and 
the men were consulted as to whether they would con- 
tinue for a short distance to the eastward. To their 
honour they all assented without a murmur ; but the 
cruel north-east wind forbade much progress in that 
direction, and their farthest east was reached at Castor 
and Pollux River. From there immediate return was 
imperative, as not a day could be spared. And so, 
from latitude 68° 28' 23", longitude 94° 14/, they turned 
back on the 21st of August, leaving the survey of the 
north coast of the American mainland practically com- 
plete from Bering Strait to Boothia. 

Further, on their return journey they crossed to the 
southern shore of King William Land and traced its coast 
for nearly sixty miles, discovering and naming Cape 
Herschel, south-eastward of which, in Simpson Strait, 
M'Clintock found the remains of one of Franklin's 
men. They thus linked up with what was to be the 
route of the Franklin expedition and were the first to 
find the North-West Passage for the command of 
which the territory was given by Charles II to the 
Hudson's Bay Company. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE PARRY ISLANDS 

John Rae — Wollaston Land and Victoria Strait— Overlaps Franklin's route — 
M'Clure discovers Prince of Wales Strait — The North- West Passage — 
Banks Land — M'Clure rescued by Bedford Pim — Collinson's remarkable 
voyage — In Beaufort Sea — Reaches Banks Strait — Voyage to Cambridge 
Bay — On Franklin's route — The North- West Passage sailed by Amundsen 
along the track of the Enterprise — Sir John Barrow — Parry's first voyage 
—Penetrates Lancaster Sound and discovers the Parry Islands — Stopped 
by ice in Banks Strait — The search for Franklin— Sir John Ross — De 
Haven — Penny — Austin — Ommanney — Osborn — Belcher — Kellett — 
JVFClintock — Drift of the Resolute — Sledge work — Sverdrup's discoveries 
during his four years in the north. 

THE second to complete a north-west passage by 
linking up with Franklin's voyage was Dr. John 
Rae, an Orkneyman by birth, as energetic as Thomas 
Simpson and evidently not inferior to him in stamina, 
for in his Arctic journeys he walked a distance equal to 
that of the circumference of the earth. In 1846 he 
had surveyed the Committee Bay district between 
Boothia and the Melville Peninsula, reaching it from 
Repulse Bay, and in 1848 and 1849 he had been associ- 
ated with Richardson in searching for Franklin along the 
coast from the Mackenzie eastwards. Next year, while 
in charge of the Mackenzie district, he was again re- 
quested to lead a Franklin search expedition, and, 
starting from Fort Confidence on the 25th of April, 
was on the sea by the 1st of May. Crossing over to 
Wollaston Land, and making westward along the coast 

170 







To face page 170 



RAE FINDS THE FIRST TRACE OF FRANKLIN 171 
on the 22nd of May, he rounded Cape Baring, just 
above the seventieth parallel. Crossing to its con- 
tinuation, Victoria Land, on a second journey, he 
travelled eastward, and, going up Victoria Strait, 
rounded Pelly Point, also just above the seventieth 
parallel, on the 12th of July, thus practically complet- 
ing the survey of the southern half of what Collinson 
was to prove is one large island. 

Off Pelly Point, it afterwards appeared, the Erebus 
and Terror were beset in the ice in September, 1846, 
and fifty miles to the south-east they had been 
abandoned in April, 1848 ; but the only relic found by 
Rae on this occasion was the doubtful one — picked up 
in Parker Bay — of the butt-end of a flag-staff on 
which was nailed a piece of white line by two copper 
tacks, all three bearing the Government mark. This 
was the first to be found of anything that could be 
thought to be a trace of the missing ships, a sort 
of promise of what he was to meet with four years 
later ; and it is worth noting that, had he not failed in 
getting across the strait to King William Land, Rae 
would in 1850 have probably discovered Franklin's 
fate. 

His farthest in these parts was passed in May, 1853, 
by Captain Richard Collinson, in his sledge journey to 
Gateshead Island from H.M.S. Enterprise, then winter- 
ing in Cambridge Bay. The Enterprise and Investigator 
had been placed under Collinson's command and sent 
by way of Cape Horn to search for Franklin from 
the west, the instructions being that the ships should 
not part company ; but regardless of this, Commander 
Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure, of the Investigator, 



172 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

happening to get through Bering Strait first, declined 

to wait for his commanding officer, went off on an 

expedition on his own account and, by a sledge journey, 

joined Parry's track when in search of the North- West 

Passage. 

Steering north-east from Franklin Bay, M'Clure 
reached the south of Parry's Banks Land and followed 
the coast north-eastwards, discovering Prince of Wales 
Strait and making his way rather more than half-way 
up, until, near Princess Royal Island in 72° 50', he 
was caught in the ice and imprisoned for the winter. 
On Trafalgar Day, 1850, M'Clure left the Investigator 
on a sledge journey up the strait, and at sunrise on th 
26th of October, from Mount Observation in 73° 30', 
hill six hundred feet above the sea, he looked over 
Banks Strait and Melville Sound, and saw the coast oi 
Banks Land terminating about twelve miles further on 
and thence trending to the north-west, while Wollaston 
Land, as it proved to be, turned eastward on the other 
side at Peel Point. That evening Banks Strait was 
reached at Cape Lord John Russell, and the North- 
West Passage by Prince of Wales Strait clearly 
demonstrated. The spot was not bare of vegetation, 
and there were many traces of animals, for, fortunately 
for M'Clure, there was no scarcity of game during his 
three winterings in Banks Land — reindeer in herds 
musk oxen occasionally, hares in troops, ducks in 
plenty, ptarmigan almost as numerous, and bears, 
wolves, and foxes to feed on them ; for instance, the 
weights of three items in the bag, 1945 lb. of musk ox 
77161b. of deer, and 10171b. of hare, show fairly good 
shooting. 



M'CLURE IN BANKS LAND 173 

Enclosing a record of the visit in a cairn, M'Clure 
returned to the ship, from which in the spring three 
sledge parties were sent out — Cresswell's to the north- 
west finding that Banks Land was an island, Wynniatt's 
to the north-east reaching Reynolds Point on the north 
of Wollaston Land, and Haswell's down Wollaston 
Land to within forty miles of where Rae turned back 
about a week later — this being the only attempt at 
searching for Franklin that the expedition undertook 
after sighting Nelson Head. Released in July, the 
Investigator retreated down the strait and attempted to 
circumnavigate Banks Land, finding to the west a 
coast as precipitous as a wall, the water deep — fifteen 
fathoms close in, with the yardarms almost touching 
the cliffs on one hand and the lofty ice on the other — 
and the pack drawing forty feet of water, rising in 
rolling hills a hundred feet from base to summit. On 
shore the hills were as remarkable. Many of them 
were peaked and isolated by precipitous gorges, about 
three hundred feet deep. And all the way up them 
were numbers of fallen trees, in many places in layers, 
some protruding twelve or fourteen feet, one of these 
trunks measuring nineteen inches in diameter. Says 
M'Clure : " I entered a ravine some miles inland, and 
found the north side of it, for a depth of forty feet 
from the surface, composed of one mass of wood 
similar to what I had before seen. The whole depth 
of the ravine was about two hundred feet. The 
ground around the wood or trees was formed of sand 
and shingle; some of the wood was petrified, the re- 
mainder very rotten and worthless even for burning." 
And this forest bed is on the shore of the Beaufort Sea 



174 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

in 74° north latitude, a similar one being in Prince 
Patrick Island, on the other side of Banks Strait. 

After one or two narrow escapes the Investigator 
entered her last home at the Bay of Mercy, well 
within the strait, near Cape Hamilton, the most 
prominent of the three capes discovered from the 
Dundas Peninsula by Parry's lieutenant, Beechey, 
thirty-one years before. The winter passed, and on 
the 11th of April M'Clure left the ship on a sledge 
journey across to Parry's old quarters at Winter 
Harbour, which were reached on the 28th, to find 
nothing but a notice of M'Clintock's having been there 
in the previous June. Noticing Parry's inscription 
rock, M'Clure judiciously left on it a statement that 
the Investigator was in want of relief at Mercy Bay. 
But all through that year no news from the outside 
came to Banks Land, and matters became serious 
owing to the appearance of scurvy, notwithstanding 
the abundance of fresh meat, for even in January a 
herd of reindeer trotted by. 

Another winter went wearily, each month with a 
gloomier outlook than the last, and on the 5th of April 
the first of the scurvy patients died. Next morning 
M'Clure and Has well were walking near the ship dis- 
cussing how they could dig a grave in the frozen 
ground, when they noticed a man hurriedly approach- 
ing from the entrance of the bay, throwing up his 
arms and shouting at the top of his voice, his face as 
black as ebony. When he came within talking range 
the dark-faced stranger called out, " I am Lieutenant 
Pirn, late of the Herald and now in the Resolute; 
Captain Kellett is in her at Dealy Island." And soon 



THE PARRY ISLANDS 




100 200 300 •400 500 



To face page 174 



COLLINSON'S VOYAGE 175 

the dog-sledge with two men came into view. Pirn's 
arrival was most fortunate for the sufferers, for the 
captain, as a desperate resource, was — in spite of the 
doctor's protests — just about to send off two sledge 
parties of the invalids to take their chance of escaping 
somehow, as there was no hope of their recovery in 
the ship ; and on examination by the doctor of the 
Resolute, it was found that every man of the crew was 
more or less affected by the disease. So the ship was 
abandoned in Mercy Bay, and the officers and crew, 
crossing to the Resolute, reached England by way of 
Hudson Strait. 

Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever 

accomplished by a sailing-ship in the Arctic regions. 

It lasted from 1850 to 1855 — five years and a hundred 

and sixteen days— all the way out across the Atlantic 

and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a 

hundred and twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the 

Arctic sea, coming nearest at the time to completing 

the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of Wales 

iStrait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one 

jjoining with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait, 

the other with Franklin's up Victoria Strait), and 

approaching nearer than any other naval expedition 

to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's 

; route for some distance, and passing within thirty miles 

| of the spot where the vessels he was in search of had 

I been abandoned, though unfortunately, like Rae, he 

I was on the west side of the waterway instead of the 

east. 

Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the Enterprise 
went north from Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort 



176 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

Sea, until she was stopped by the heavy pack. Trying 
east, to join with Parry's farthest, and then west, she 
arrived, on the 28th of August, at 73° 23' in 164°, and II 
here she turned south after having sailed over eleven 
thousand miles without having to reef her topsails, an 
unprecedented run of distance and fine weather com- 
bined. Returning in 1851 from wintering at Hong 
Kong, Collinson, with a southerly wind "too precious 
to be wasted," made his way up Prince of Wales 
Strait, knowing nothing of the visit of the Investigator, 
to find ice blocking his way just at the northern outlet, 
his furthest north, by ship, 73° 30', forty miles beyond 
M'Clure's winter quarters, as given in the record he 
found in one of the cairns. 

Unable to round the corner into Banks Strait owing 
to the ice block, Collinson returned down Prince of 
Wales Strait and followed the track of the Investigator 
half-way up the west coast of Banks Land, though he 
had found nothing to indicate she had gone in that 
direction. Finding the ice conditions dangerous, he 
retraced his route along the coast and went into com- 
fortable winter quarters in Walker Bay, at the entrance 
of Prince of Wales Strait. By the end of November 
the natives fishing for salmon-trout had cleared off, as 
also had the reindeer, hares, and ptarmigan and other 
birds, and on the 17th of March the ravens, which had I 
been the last to leave, were the first to return. In 
April sledge parties went out, one of which under 
Lieutenant Parkes crossed the route of the Hecla 
along the strait and reached Melville Island at Cape 
Providence on the way to Winter Harbour, short of 
which, within sight of Point Hearne, Parkes began his 



THROUGH CORONATION GULF 177 

homeward journey, owing to his taking the tracks of 
sledges and barking of dogs as indicating the presence, 
not of M'Clure as it did, but of Eskimos, with whom, 
being without weapons, he was unable to cope. 

Released on the 5th of August, the Enterprise pro- 
ceeded to sea, coasting along past Rae's farthest and 
Cape Baring, and so, where no ship had been, through 
Coronation Gulf to Cambridge Bay. Here the winter 
of 1852-3 was spent, and hence the sledges went up 
Victoria Strait. At Finlayson Islands, what seemed 
to be a piece of a companion-door was found among 
the driftwood, which might have been a relic of the 
lost ships ; but that was all. During the return along 
the northern coast the Enterprise was beset in Camden 
Bay, and here the third winter was passed, release not 
coming until the end of the following July, and Bering 
Strait not being reached until the 21st of August after 
a voyage, like that of the Vega, too well managed to 
yield much adventure. like all the other Arctic 
voyages of this period, it failed in the one object it 
was undertaken to achieve ; but in days to come the 
first ship to sail the passage from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific was to follow Collinson from Cambridge Bay 
along the route laboriously completed by the surveyors 
of the mainland from James Cook to Dease and 
iSimpson. 

M'Clure claimed and — to have done with the matter 
—obtained the reward of £10,000 for discovering the 
North- West Passage through Prince of Wales Strait, 
:hough he sailed only half-way up it and, in attempting 
:o get round to Parry's farthest, lost his ship and 
started sledging on the west side of the pack ; while 



178 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

Collinson took his ship much nearer to Parry's cours 
on the east side ; and Franklin, by linking up witi 
Dease and Simpson over the ice by way of Victoria 
Strait, had previously found another of the possible 
passages, as shown by Collinson's voyage to Cambridge 
Bay. But surely what was done by M'Clure, and by 
Collinson in his northerly cruise, was to see where ships 
could pass when there was no ice in the way, which 
was no more than had been done by Parry, who had 
taken his ship within sight of both their farthests, and 
would have sailed into the Beaufort Sea had not the 
pack forbidden it. It was Parry, in fact, who dis- 
covered the main road, the route by Prince of Wales 
Strait, like that by Peel Sound taken by Franklin and 
successfully accomplished by Amundsen, being only 
one of the many by-roads leading off along his course. 
His famous voyage to Melville Island was due to the 
influence of Sir John Barrow. Barrow, to whom more 
than any other man this country owes its position in 
Arctic story, was born in a small thatched cottage at 
Dragley Beck, near Ulverston, in North Lancashire, in 
1764, and, in a remarkable course of promotion by 
merit, became second secretary of the Admiralty for 
forty years under twelve or thirteen different naval 
administrations, Whig and Tory; being so unmistakably 
the right man in the right place that he was only dis- 
pensed with once — on a change of First Lords — and 
then was reinstated the next year. When he was 
seventeen he was given the opportunity of a voyage 
in a Greenland whaler, which he accepted, and that 
was his only Arctic experience ; but even when wit 
Macartney in China and South Africa, he kept u 




To face page 178 



PARRY'S GREAT VOYAGE 179 

his interest in the north, and in 1817, when at the 
Admiralty, proposed to Lord Melville his plan for two 
voyages of discovery, one to the north and the other 
to the north-west, which opened the new era of Polar 
exploration. 

The voyage to the north was that of Buchan and 
Franklin in the Dorothea and Trent; that to the north- 
west was undertaken by John Ross in the Isabella and 
William Edward Parry in the Alexander. Of this we 
need only say here that on their return from the north 
of Baffin Bay, Ross and Parry coasted down the west 
side and sailed into Lancaster Sound for a considerable 
distance until Ross — who seems to have had the 
mountain-finding eye and an unenviable gift for miss- 
ing straits — declared that it ended in a range of moun- 
tains which he appropriately named Croker's ; and, that 
there should be no mistake about them, he gave a very 
pretty picture of them as a full-page plate in his book. 
Parry, however, saw no mountains and took the liberty 
of saying so to Barrow when he reported himself at the 
Admiralty, the result being the despatch of Parry's 
expedition in the Hecla and Ghiper which left Yar- 
mouth on the 12th of May, 1819, and, for the first time 
after leaving the coast of Norfolk, dropped anchor in 
the bay named after them in Melville Island, on the 5th 
Df September. 

Parry, before his voyage in the Alexander, had had 
Arctic experience while lieutenant of the Aleocan- 
iria frigate engaged in protecting the Spitsbergen 
vhale fisheries, and knew thoroughly what he was 
ibout. For instance, he worked his crews in three 
vatches, and had both his vessels rigged as barques 



180 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

as the most convenient rig among ice, though the 
Griper, a strong, slow gunboat, was rather too small to 
be so treated, being only about half the tonnage of the 
Hecla, whose measurement was under four hundred. 
Had she been a little speedier more work might have 
been done ; but what was done was magnificent. 

Entering Lancaster Sound, Parry found a strait not 
blocked by mountains but thirty miles broad leading 
into a region up to then unknown, except — so it is said 
— to the Norsemen. On the 12th of August Prince 
Regent Inlet was discovered and named, it being 
George IV's birthday. Then North Somerset was 
sighted and the course laid across Barrow Strait to 
North Devon and its south-western peninsula known 
as Beechey Island ; then Wellington Channel was des- 
cried, and then Cornwallis Island. Griffith Island was 
discovered on the 23rd of August, Bathurst Island on 
the 25th, Byam Martin Island on the 27th, where 
Sabine, the astronomer of the expedition, found they 
had passed north of the magnetic north pole. Then 
the south side of Melville Island was coasted along, 
Dealy Island being found on the 4th of September at 
noon, and, at a quarter past nine at night, just after 
passing Bounty Cape (named in honour of the event), 
the Hecla crossed the 110th meridian west, and 
became entitled to the Government grant of £5000 for 
doing so — which Parry shared between the ships. 

Soon the ice became difficult and the ships had to 
anchor, but, the conditions improving, the westerly 
voyage was resumed. Cape Providence was passed and 
Cape Hay sighted, but the ships could get no further 
than about half-way between these capes, and they had 



PARRY IN WINTER QUARTERS 181 

to return to Winter Harbour, where, on the 26th of 
September, they were warped to their quarters through 
a channel cut in the ice. The Hecla, sending down all 
her upper masts except the main topmast, and the 
Griper, housing her fore and main topmasts, used the 
spars to support a roof which completely enclosed their 
upper decks and made them both snug for the winter, 
which did not seem so long owing to the efforts of the 
officers to keep every one amused and on the move. 
Parry, a host in himself, was well seconded by his 
lieutenant, Beechey, late of the Trent, James Clark 
Ross, one of his midshipmen, Captain Sabine, and 
Lieutenant Liddon, the commander of the Griper, who 
was almost disabled with rheumatism, and Lieutenant 
Hoppner, also of the Griper. A couple of books of 
plays on board proved a real treasure ; owing to them 
the Royal Arctic Theatre was started, the pioneer of so 
many amateur theatrical ventures in the Polar seas, 
and the North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle 
came into existence, the first of ship newspapers. On 
Christmas Day there was a dinner of roast beef which 
had been on board since May, the condition of 
which, as Parry said, was an excellent testimony to the 
antiseptic properties of a cold atmosphere ; and the 
food generally was good and abundant, and the manage- 
ment and supplies far better than on many subsequent 
expeditions. In the spring, game was found in fair 
quantity, nearly four thousand pounds of musk ox, 
deer, hares, geese, ducks, and ptarmigan being brought 
on board. 

In May the vessels were afloat again, though ice- 
bound, and, in June, walking, not sledging, journeys 



182 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

were organised, the furthest points reached being Cape 
Fisher to the north and Cape Hoppner to the west. 
On the 1st of August the vessels moved out of the 
bay to the westward, and six days afterwards Beechey 
called attention to the land with the three capes already 
mentioned. " The land," says Parry, " which extends 
beyond the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the 
most western yet discovered in the Polar Sea to the 
north of the American continent, was honoured with 
the name of Banks Land out of respect to the late 
venerable and worthy President of the Royal Society." 

On the 16th Cape Dundas was named, but progress 
was impossible. For a week Parry made every en- 
deavour to pass, but the floes, forty to fifty feet thick, 
heaped up by the tides from the east and the west so 
as to form a wide-stretching landscape of hill and dale, 
barred the way right across Banks Strait ; and no 
further west could be attained than 113° 46' 43 m 5", in 
latitude 74° 26' 25". Thence Parry returned, hoping 
to get through on another voyage, and bidding farewell 
to the North Georgian Islands, as he called them, or 
the Parry Islands, as we now know them, he came 
home by the way he went out, through Lancaster 
Sound. Needless to say, the very next season the 
whalers followed on Parry's track, and Lancaster 
Sound became the highway to a very profitable fishing- 
ground. 

Among the Parry Islands in 1851 were several 
vessels in search of Franklin. Sir John Ross, aged 
seventy-four, was there in the schooner-yacht Felioo on 
a private expedition chiefly memorable for the story 
of his having sent off a carrier pigeon from his winter 



SEARCHING FOR FRANKLIN 183 

quarters at Cornwallis Island, which reached his home 
— North- West Castle, Stranraer, Wigtownshire — three 
thousand miles away, in five days. Lady Franklin's 
vessel, the Prince Albert, was there, with Captain 
Forsyth and Parker Snow on board, an old fruit 
schooner, and therefore the speediest sailing - craft 
among the crowd. The Grinnell expedition of the 
two American brigs, Advance and Racer, under De 
Haven, was also there, to drift afterwards up Welling- 
ton Channel and down again back into Baffin Bay ; 
as was a British Government expedition of the two 
whaling brigs, Lady Franklin and Sophia, under Captain 
William Penny, who was to discover the sea open north 
of Wellington Channel. In addition to these was the 
British squadron under Captain Horatio Austin in 
H.M.S. Resolute, with H.M.S. Assistance, Captain 
Erasmus Ommanney, and the old Cattle Conveyance 
Company's boats known as H.M.S. Intrepid, Lieutenant 
Cator, and H.M.S. Pioneer, Lieutenant Sherard Osborn, 
these two being screw steamers used as tenders, which 
proved of great value as tugs and ice-breakers. 

On the 23rd of August Captain Ommanney found 
Franklin's winter quarters on Beechey Island, and four 
days afterwards Captain Penny came upon the grave- 
stones marking where the three men, two of the 
Erebus and one of the Terror, had been buried in 
1846, though nothing was discoverable of the route 
intended to be taken by the ships. The news was 
important, and the Prince Albert, acting as despatch 
vessel, was immediately sent home with it, to return 
next year with Kennedy and Bellot to make a dis- 
covery of her own. Soon Captain Austin's four ships 



184 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

departed, also to return in the following year, Sir 
Edward Belcher, in the Assistance, being then in com- 
mand, Kellett being in the Resolute, M'Clintock in the 
Intrepid, and Sherard Osborn again in the Pioneer. 
Belcher's attempt ended in his abandoning his vessels 
in the ice ; one of them, the Resolute, as though in 
mute protest, drifting from 74° 41/ for a thousand 
miles, to be picked up by Buddington off Cape Dyer 
in Baffin Bay, bought from him by the American 
Government and presented to Great Britain, refitted 
as she used to be, as a much-appreciated token of good- 
will. 

The great feature of these years was the wonderful 
sledge work ; by it mainly the northern coasts of the 
islands discovered by Parry were surveyed and other 
islands added to the archipelago, including the western- 
most, Prince Patrick, named after the Duke of Con- 
naught, who was at first known as Prince Patrick instead 
of Prince Arthur. The sledges fitted out by Austin 
traversed 1500 miles of coast-fine, 850 of which were new, 
the routes radiating between Osborn's 72° 18' and Brad- 
ford's 76° 25', M'Clintock going farthest, 760 miles, to 
114° 20' in 74° 38'. Those next year from Kellett at 
Dealy Island covered 8558 miles, radiating from Pirn's 
74° 6' (to rescue M'Clure) to M'Clintock's 77° 23', a 
run to 118° 20' and back of 1401 miles, while Mecham 
reached 120° 30' on a trip of 1163 miles ; and Belcher 
from his winter quarters in Northumberland Sound, in 
76° 52', aided by Richards and Osborn, was almost as 
busy further north. 

Thus practically the whole belt of land and sea 
westward between and including Lancaster Sound and 



SVERDRUPS DISCOVERIES 185 

Jones Sound as far as 120° was searched and mapped, 
the most northerly of the Parry Islands known up to 
then being Finlay Island, North Cornwall, and Graham 
Island. But in 1898 Captain Otto Sverdrup went up 
Smith Sound in his old ship the Fram on an endeavour 
to sail round the north coast of Greenland from west 
to east. He had to winter in Rice Strait, near Pirn 
Island, and finding, to put it sportingly, that he was 
to a certain extent trespassing on Peary's preserves, 
decided to devote his attention to the unknown region 
approachable through Jones Sound. In 1899, there- 
fore, he took the Fram up the sound, and, failing 
to pass through Cardigan Strait, spent the three 
following years among the fiords at the north-western 
end. 

From here he sent his sledge and ski parties far and 
wide, west and south and north over an approximate 
area of a hundred thousand square miles. Long 
stretches of coast-line were explored and named, in a 
few cases unnecessarily, though, strange to say, the 
unnecessary names were all royal ones, King Oscar 
Land being the west of Ellesmere Land, Crown Prince 
Gustav Sea and Prince Gustav Adolf Sea being the 
Polar Ocean, and King Christian Land being simply 
Finlay Island. Separated from Finlay Island by 
Danish Sound and from North Cornwall by Hendrik- 
sen Sound, he found two large islands, which — just as 
John Ross named Boothia after his principal patron, 
the distiller — Sverdrup named Ellef Ringnes and 
Amund Ringnes after two of his supporters, the 
brewers ; his other discovery, Axel Heiberg Land — 
which seems to be Peary's Jesup Land sighted in 1898 



186 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

— to the west and north-west of these, being so called 
after his other munificent patron. 

His farthest south was Beechey Island, his farthest 
west Cape Isachsen in Ellef Ringnes Land, his farthest 
north Lands Lokk in Grant Land, in latitude 81° 40' 
and longitude about 92°, within sixty miles of Aldrich's 
farthest along the north-eastern coast, the gap after- 
wards traversed by Peary. Within these limits the 
amount of coast detail filled in was remarkable. 
Owing to the favourable condition of the ice and the 
excellent management in all ways, the sledges fre- 
quently did their fifteen miles and more a day. Though 
the expedition lost its doctor during the first winter, 
there was little trouble as regards health ; and game 
was in plenty right up to the far north where Hare 
Fiord tells of hares in hundreds. 

With hunting episodes the story is pleasantly varied, 
one in particular being so graphically described by 
Sverdrup that as a sample we may be forgiven a rather 
long quotation. " The bear," says Sverdrup, " was 
determined to go up a difficult stony valley a little 
north of our tent, and, try as the dogs would to 
prevent it, up the valley it went. Schei and I ran full 
speed northward along the ice-foot, and soon heard 
that the dogs had brought it to bay. We made a short 
cut across some hills of grit, and, when we reached 
the top of one of them, saw the bear on the other side 
of the valley, sitting on a hill-top, which fell almost 
sheer away. But on the north side it was accessible, 
and here it was probably that the bear had climbed it. 
There sat the king of the icefields enthroned on a kind 
of pedestal, and the whole staff of yelping dogs stand- 



A BEAR STORY 187 

ing at a respectful distance. I tried a couple of shots, 
but overrated the distance, and the bullets went over 
the bear's head. I then told Schei to go and shoot it 
whilst I looked on at the further development of the 
drama. The bear's position was a first-rate one. It 
had taken its stand on a little plateau high up on a 
mountain crag ; this little ledge was reached by a 
bridge not more than a good yard in width, and there 
stood the bear, like Sven Dufva, ready with his sledge- 
hammer to fell the first being that should venture 
across. His majesty was not visible to Schei until he 
came within a few feet of him, but then it was not 
long before a shot was heard. The bear sank to- 
gether, and a few seconds afterwards all the dogs had 
thrown themselves on to it. They tugged and pulled 
at the bear's coat, tearing tufts of hair out of it, and 
before we knew what they were doing, had dragged 
the body to the edge of the plateau, where it shot out 
over the precipice. The dogs stood amazed, gazing 
down into the depths where the bear was falling swiftly 
through the air — but not alone, for on it as large as 
life were two dogs which had clung so fast to its hair, 
that they now stood planted head to head, and bit 
themselves still faster to it in order to keep their 
balance. I was breathless as I watched this unexpected 
journey through the air. The next moment the bear 
in its perpendicular fall would reach the projecting 
point of rock, and my poor dogs ! — it was a cruel 
revenge the bear was taking on them. I should now 
have only three dogs left in my team. The bear's 
body dashed violently against the rock, turned a 
somersault out from the mountain wall and fell still 



188 THE PARRY ISLANDS 

further, until, after falling a height of altogether at 
least a hundred feet, it reached the slopes by the river, 
and was shot by the impetus right across the river-ice 
and a good way up the other side. And the dogs ? 
When the bear dashed against the mountain they 
sprang up like rubber balls, described a large curve, 
and with stiffened legs continued the journey on their 
own account, falling with a loud thud on to the hardly 
packed snow at the bottom of the valley. But they 
were on their legs again in a moment, and set off as 
fast as they could go across the river after the bear. 
Not many minutes afterwards the whole pack came 
running up, but when they were driven away from the 
carcase, they lay down again to await their turn. I 
hurried back to camp to fetch the dog harness ; we 
put a lanyard through the nose of the mighty fallen, 
and set off. The dogs knew well enough that this 
meant food for them, and the nearer we came to camp 
the harder they pulled. In fact, I had to sit on the 
carcase to keep them back, and, jolting backwards and 
forwards, on this new kind of conveyance I made my 
entrance into camp, in the light spring night." But 
bears were few, compared with the musk oxen, which, 
with the reindeer and hares, and with the wolves and 
foxes, and stoats and lemmings, seals and walruses, 
narwhals and white whales, represented the Arctic 
mammalia. 

The most singular experience met with was perhaps 
the sledge journey through the ice tunnel on the return 
across the Simmons Peninsula in 1900. Descending a 
valley which became narrower and narrower Sverdrup 
and Fosheim began to think it was going to end in a 



THROUGH THE ICE TUNNEL 189 

canyon, but without any warning they were stopped by 
a high wall of ice, perpendicular and inaccessible to any 
one without wings. Looking about, Sverdrup found a 
large hole which proved to be the beginning of a tunnel 
through the glacier. Through this lofty vault they 
sped. From the roof hung threateningly above their 
heads gigantic blocks of ice, seamed and cleft and 
glittering sinisterly ; and all around were icicles like 
steel-bright spears and lances piercing downwards on 
them. Along the walls were caves after caves, with 
pillars in rows like giants in rank ; and over all shone a 
ghostly whitish light which became bluish as they went. 
" I dared not speak," says Sverdrup. " It seemed to me 
that in doing so I should be committing a deed of dese- 
cration ; I felt like one who has impiously broken into 
something sacred which Nature had wished to keep 
closed to every mortal eye. I felt mean and con- 
temptible as I drove through all this purity. The 
sledges jolted from block to block, awakening thunder- 
ous echoes in their passage : and it seemed as if all the 
spirits of the ice had been aroused and called to arms 
against the intruders on their church-like peace." 



CHAPTER X 
BOOTHIA 

Christopher Middleton — Wager River — Repulse Bay — Parry's second north- 
west voyage — Melville Peninsula — Fury and Hecla Strait — John Ross's 
second Arctic voyage — Introduces steam navigation into the Arctic regions 
— The whaler John — Ross misses the North- West Passage — Snow houses — 
Eskimo geographers — James Clark Ross finds the Magnetic North Pole — 
Lyon in the Griper — Back in the Terror — Rae's journey round Committee 
Bay — Sir John Franklin's last voyage — Kennedy and Bellot — Discovery 
of Bellot Strait— Rae's journey in 1854 — His Franklin discoveries — 
M'Clintock's voyage in the Fox — Lady Franklin's instructions — Captain 
Charles Hall — Frederick Schwatka — Amundsen accomplishes the North- 
West Passage. 

IN July, 1742, Christopher Middleton, working 
northwards in Hudson Bay from Fort Churchill, 
made his way up Rowe's Welcome and entered a deep 
inlet apparently leading to the South Sea. Middleton 
— who gained his Fellowship of the Royal Society for 
his variation observations at Fort Churchill, and was 
the first to practise the modern method of finding 
longitude by eight or ten different altitudes of the sun 
or stars when near the prime vertical — spent eighteen 
days in the inlet observing the tides, and then came to 
the conclusion that it was an estuary ; and he named 
it Wager River after Sir Charles Wager, who was First 
Lord of the Admiralty when he began his voyage. 
Proceeding north, he reached his Repulse Bay, and at 
the north-east end of it saw Frozen Strait, as he called 
it, stretching away along the north of Southampton 

190 



PARRY'S SECOND NORTH-WEST VOYAGE 191 
Island towards Cape Comfort. Here, also from tidal 
observations, he satisfied himself that Repulse Bay 
afforded no passage to the westward and that Frozen 
Strait led into Fox Channel. 

His opinions were disputed by those who only knew 
the coast from his chart, and two vessels were sent out 
to prove he was wrong. The reports of the captains 
Df these — there is no need to mention their names — 
were embarrassing. Neither had been to Repulse Bay, 
[but both had been to Wager River, and they agreed 
that it was unmistakably a river and not a strait ; but 
in every other respect, even in naming the places they 
had seen, they were at variance. Thus the matter was 
left in sufficient doubt to encourage some people in 
believing in a north-west passage through Repulse Bay, 
just at the Arctic Circle, and to seek this, Parry, on 
his return from Melville Island, was despatched on his 
second voyage. 

This time the Hecla was commanded by George 
Francis Lyon — the North African traveller — Parry 
being in the Fury, a sister ship ; both vessels, at Parry's 
suggestion, being exactly alike so that their gear and 
fittings were interchangeable. They sailed from the 
Little Nore on the 8th of May, 1821, and going direct 
up Frozen Strait, with much trouble from the ice, ran 
into Repulse Bay on the 22nd of August. Here after 
a careful examination it was ascertained beyond a doubt 
that no passage existed through to the westward. 
J Thus," says Lyon, " the veracity of poor Middleton, 
as far as regards this bay at least, was now at length 
established ; and in looking down the strait we had 
passed, he was fully justified in calling it a frozen strait. 



192 BOOTHIA 

We were now indisputably on our scene of future 
action, the coast of America ; and it only remained for 
us to follow minutely the line of shore in continuation 
from Repulse Bay." 

During a stay at Gore Bay red snow was brought off 
to the Fury, its colour being much fainter than that 
found in the Isabella voyage at Crimson Cliffs in 
Greenland ; " the appearance of the mass was not un- 
like what is called raspberry ice, in a far better climate, 
where cold is made subservient to luxury." The colour- 
ing of this is due to one of the Algse, Protococcus 
nivalis, and not as Peter Paterson said in 1671 — ninety 
years before De Saussure — to the rocks being " full of 
white, red, and yellow veins, like marble ; upon any 
alteration of the weather, these stones sweat, which, 
together with the rains, tinges the snow red." The 
day on which this snow was found, the 30th of August, 
was so warm that the party were glad to pull off their 
coats and waistcoats. " The valleys were fertile in 
grasses and moss ; and the fineness of the weather had 
drawn forth a number of butterflies, spiders, and other 
insects, which would, by their gay colours and active 
motions, have almost deceived us into an idea that we 
were not in the Arctic regions, had not the Frozen 
Strait, filled with huge masses of moving ice, reminded 
us but too forcibly, that we were in the most dangerous 
of them." 

Early in October the ships took up their quarters at 
Winter Island on the coast of Melville Peninsula in 
66° 32', and there, during the cordial intercourse with 
the Eskimos, Parry heard of the way through further 
north which led him on his release in the following 



Twt/ first 3rii ■> 




iSfi^du/?* l8z3 



PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE 



To face page 192 



PARRY'S THIRD NORTH-WEST VOYAGE 193 
July to discover Fury and Heel a Strait, along which 

(the ships passed to find their progress blocked by the 
ice just beyond its entrance into Regent Inlet. Return- 
ing through the strait, they reached the island of Igloolik 
at the eastern entrance, and there they passed the 
winter, Igloolik being an important Eskimo settlement, 
with four fixed places of residence on it, to which as the 
season changes the natives move in rotation. From 
this island, as the health of the men did not permit of 
his venturing to spend another winter in the ice, Parry 
retraced his route and returned to England. 

The ships dropped anchor in the Thames on Trafalgar 
Day, 1823. Next year, on the 19th of May, they were 
off again to the north to seek a passage to the west 
down Prince Regent Inlet, Parry in the Hecla, Hoppner 
in the Fury. It was a bad season. The ships were 
late in leaving Baffin Bay and were hindered by new 
ice in Lancaster Sound. So far from reaching the 
strait discovered two years before, they could get no 
further south than Port Bowen, in 73° 12', where they 
spent the winter in a singularly barren part of Cockburn 
Land. Starting in July they went down to Cresswell 
Bay, the ships being forced by the weather and the ice 

I to work — as is not unusual under such circumstances — 

[in almost every possible direction within every mile, 
their track — as shown in the illustration — being most 
complicated. The end of it all was that the Fury was 

t wrecked and her stores carefully taken out and left, on 
what was named Fury Beach, for the use of future 
callers in want of them. And the Hecla came home 
alone. 

Four years afterwards Captain John Ross, anxious 



194 BOOTHIA 

for further work in the north, started in search of th< 
passage by the same route. After some years of efforl 
he had succeeded in organising an expedition, the ex- 
penses of which to the amount of over £1 7,000 wen 
borne by Felix Booth, with the exception of over £200' 
added by Ross himself. It was a memorable voyag 
in many respects, and for one thing in particular thi 
is frequently passed unnoticed. This was the intr 
duction of steam into Arctic navigation. The Victor 
was an old Isle of Man packet-boat of eighty-five ton; 
which, by raising her sides five feet, Ross increase 
to one hundred and fifty tons. Taking out her oli 
paddles, he replaced them with a pair of Robertson 
patents, hoistable out of water in a minute, so as ti 
clear the ice. The engine was also a patent, by Brait] 
waite and Ericsson, who built the Novelty that appearei 
at Rainhill. But neither Braith waite nor Ericsson w 
any happier in this production. Its great feature wi 
the doing away with the funnel, no flue being require 
owing to the fires being kept going by artificial draught 
derived from two bellows of unequal sizes — "the bellows 
draught," in fact, like that of the Novelty which broke 
down in the great locomotive contest won by the 
Rocket. Had not Ross been a man of enterprise he 
would never have ventured to sea with such an ex- 
perimental arrangement ; but he did, and he suffered 
for it. 

The " execrable machinery," as he inadequately 
called it, went wrong from the first. On the way from 
Galleons Reach to Woolwich, part of it became dis- 
placed, causing a delay for repairs. At Woolwich, Sir 
Byam Martin, the Comptroller of the Navy, and 




THE "VICTORY" 



To face page 194 



THE FIRST ARCTIC STEAMSHIP 195 

Sir John Franklin went on board and said uncompli- 
mentary things about it, as also did the Duke of 
Orleans (afterwards King Louis Philippe) and the 
Duke of Chartres, though the Frenchmen were more 
gentle in their phrases. From Woolwich to Margate 
this remarkable engine, aided by the sails, took the 
Victory in just over twelve hours, the boiler leaking so 
much that the additional forcing pump had to be kept 
working by hand all the time. Passing the Lizard, the 
piston-rod was found to be so much worn on one side 
by friction against the guide-wheels that a piece of iron 
had to be brazed on to it. Then the keys of the main 
shaft broke and the substitutes made on board broke 
one after the other. " The boilers also continued to 
leak, though we had put dung and potatoes in them by 
Mr. Ericsson's directions." The air-pump drew quan- 
tities of water ; the feeding pump was insufficient to 
supply the boiler. The big bellows nearly wore out ; 
so did the small one. Off the Mull of Galloway the 
stoker fell into the machinery and had his arm crushed 
and nearly severed above the elbow. Then the teeth 
of the fly-wheel of the small bellows were shorn off, 
and the boiler joints gave way, and the water, or 
rather the potato soup, flowed out of the furnace 
doors and put out the fire. 

Enough has been said to show the difficulties under 
which Ross first used steam on a voyage to the 
northern seas. The list of damages need not be con- 
tinued. Every constituent part of the apparatus gave 
way in turn ; and when the Victory became imprisoned 
for the winter, and the engineering staff had some time 
on their hands, they employed it in taking what was 



196 BOOTHIA 

left of the installation, piece by piece, out of the ship, 
laying it on the ice, and leaving it there. 

Ross was to be accompanied by the whaler John, but 
the men mutinied and refused to start, so that he went 
on from Loch Ryan alone. The following year the 
crew of the John, then on a whaling voyage in Baffin 
Bay, again mutinied, killed the master, put the mate , 
adrift in a boat in the manner of Henry Hudson, and 
lost the ship on the western coast, where most of them 
were drowned. 

With the Krusenstern, a boat of eighteen tons, in 
tow, Ross crossed the Atlantic, sighting Sanderson's 
Hope on the 29th of July, having left Scotland six 
weeks before. Early in August he sailed through 
Lancaster Sound, and, taking the opportunity of 
removing his Croker's Mountains to the north-east 
corner of North Somerset, went down Prince Regent : 
Inlet to Fury Beach. After completing his provisions 
for twenty-seven months from the stores left behind by 
Parry, he crossed Cresswell Bay, passed Cape Garry, 
Parry's farthest south, on the 15th of August, and ^ 
next day, Sunday, " I went on shore," he says, " with 
all the officers, to take formal possession of the new- 
discovered land ; and at one o'clock, being a few minutes 
after seven in London, the colours were displayed with i 
the usual ceremony, and the health of the King drunk, 
together with that of the founder of our expedition, 
after whom the land was named." 

" From the highest part of this land, which was ' 
upwards of a hundred feet above the level of the sea," 
he continues, " we had a good view of the bay and the 
adjoining shores, and had the satisfaction to find that 




t v 



«*c 



JOHN ROSS MISSES BELLOT STRAIT 197 

the ice was in motion and fast clearing away. We 
therefore resolved to wait patiently till we could see 
an opening ; and proceeded to the northern quarter of 
this spot to make some observations on the dip of the 
magnetic needle. . . . To this place I gave the name 
Brown Island, after the amiable sister of Mr. Booth ; 
the inlet was named Brentford Bay, and the islands 
Grimble Islands." And in his book is a beautiful steel 
engraving by W. Chevalier, " Taking Possession. 
Cape Hussard, Grimble Isle, Brentford Bay, Brown's 
Island." In short, Ross found the place, landed 
on it, took possession of it, named it and sketched 
it. " The sketches from which the drawings were 
made were taken by Mr. Ronald's invaluable per- 
spective instrument, and therefore must be true de- 
lineations." 

And Ross passed on, apparently quite pleased with 
himself. But the Fates had again been against him, for 
this was the very North- West Passage he had come 
specially to find ; the bay, as Kennedy was to show, 
being the entrance to Bellot Strait in which the Fox 
was to winter when on the Franklin search. He had 
blundered along from the island of North Somerset to 
the mainland of America, and passed unheeded its 
northernmost point, which M'Clintock was to name 
Cape Murchison. 

Working down the coast of the newly-named 
Boothia, the Victory reached Felix Harbour, and there 
she wintered. No Eskimos were seen until the 9th of 
January, when thirty-one came to the ship and were 
invited on board, a return visit being paid next day to 
their village, which Ross named North Hendon. As 



198 BOOTHIA 

this was a typical Eskimo snow camp we may as well 
copy his picture and quote his description. 

" The village soon appeared, consisting of twelve 
snow huts, erected at the bottom of a little bight on 
the shore, about two miles and a half from the ship. 
They had the appearance of inverted basins, and were 
placed without any order ; each of them having a long 
crooked appendage, in which was the passage, at the 
entrance of which were the women, with the female 
children and the infants. We were soon invited to 
visit these, for whom we had prepared presents of glass 
beads and needles ; a distribution of which soon drove 
away the timidity which they had displayed at our first 
appearance. The passage, always long, and generally 
crooked, led to the principal apartment, which was a 
circular dome, being ten feet in diameter when intended 
for one family, and an oval of fifteen by ten where it 
lodged two. Opposite the doorway there was a bank 
of snow, occupying nearly a third of the breadth of the 
area, about two feet and a half high, level at the top, 
and covered by various skins, forming the general bed 
or sleeping place for the whole. At the end of this sat 
the mistress of the house, opposite to the lamp, which, 
being of moss and oil, as is the universal custom in 
these regions, gave a sufficient flame to supply both 
light and heat ; so that the apartment was perfectly 
comfortable. Over the lamp was the cooking dish of 
stone, containing the flesh of deer and of seals, with 
oil ; and of such provision there seemed no want. 
Everything else, dresses, implements, as well as pro- 
visions, lay about in unspeakable confusion, showing 
that order, at least, was not in the class of their virtues. 




ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE 



To face page ig 



HOW A SNOW HOUSE IS BUILT 199 

It was much more interesting to us to find, that among 
this disorder there were some fresh salmon ; since, when 
they could find this fish, we were sure that it would also 
furnish us with supplies which we could not too much 
multiply. On inquiry, we were informed that they 
were abundant ; and we had, therefore, the prospect of 
a new amusement, as well as of a valuable market at 
the mere price of our labour." 

A few weeks later Ross was to see how these houses 
were built. " Four families," he says, " comprising 
fifteen persons, passed the ship to erect new huts about 
half a mile to the southward. They had four heavy- 
laden sledges, drawn each by two or three dogs, but 
proceeded very slowly. We went after them to see 
the process of building the snow house, and were sur- 
prised at their dexterity ; one man having closed in his 
roof within forty-five minutes. A tent is scarcely 
pitched sooner than a house is here built. The whole 
process is worth describing. Having ascertained, by 
the rod used in examining seal holes, whether the snow 
is sufficiently deep and solid, they level the intended 
spot by a wooden shovel, leaving beneath a solid mass 
of snow not less than three feet thick. Commencing 
then in the centre of the intended circle, which is ten 
feet or more in diameter, different wedge-shaped blocks 
are cut out, about two feet long, and a foot thick at the 
outer part ; then trimming them accurately by the 
knife, they proceed upwards until the courses, gradually 
inclining inwards, terminate in a perfect dome. The 
door being cut out from the inside before it is quite 
closed serves to supply the upper materials. In the 
meantime the women are employed in stuffing the joints 



200 BOOTHIA 

with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for the 
dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the in- 
sertion of the ice window complete the work ; the 
passage only remaining to be added, as it is after the 
house is finished, together with some smaller huts for 
stores " — the design being similar to that of the yourts 
of the Eskimos of the north, with a change of material, 
snow for stone, and ice instead of seal-gut for the window 
over the entrance. 

Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a 
great reputation by the carpenter fitting one of them 
with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much valuable in- 
formation from them, particularly as to the geography 
of the district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed 
by their quickness in understanding maps and their 
skill in drawing them upon anything, snow, paper, or 
otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik, 
drew in the ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his 
book, showing the coast-line of the country south of 
the Victory s quarters, with the capes, inlets, and islands, 
giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee Bay, and 
Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula, 
which is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor 
Ross, had anything to copy from, it being nearly twenty 
years before Rae's exploration ; and the one thing it 
clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway 
to the westward, south of Felix Harbour. 

Ross owed much to Ikmallik, and really a good deal 
of the time of the expedition was spent in confirming 
the statements of that well-informed man. The west 
coast of Boothia was surveyed down to Bulow Bay ; 
the east side from Cape Nicholas down to Cape Porter, 



THE MAGNETIC NORTH POLE 201 

including the crossing of the upper part of James Ross 
Strait, the discovery of Matty Island and the north- 
east coast of King William Land from Cape Landon, 
opposite Cape Porter — where Ross, as usual, missed a 
strait — westward to capes Franklin and Jane Franklin, 
within sight of which in the days that were coming, 
by one of those remarkable coincidences so frequent in 
the north, the Erebus and Terror were to meet their 
fate. 

The one conspicuous triumph of the expedition was 
the journey of James Ross to the site of the Magnetic 
North Pole, which he found on the western coast of 
Boothia on the 1st of June, 1831. In the younger 
Ross's own words, " the land at this place is very low 
near the coast, but it rises into ridges of fifty or sixty 
feet high about a mile inland. We could have wished 
that a place so important had possessed more of mark 
or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there 
was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which so 
much of interest must ever be attached ; and I could 
even have pardoned any one among us who had been 
so romantic or absurd as to expect that the magnetic 
pole was an object as conspicuous and mysterious as 
the fabled mountain of Sinbad, that it even was a 
mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. 
But Nature had here erected no monument to denote 
the spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of 
her great and dark powers ; and where we could do 
little ourselves towards this end, it was our business to 
submit, and to be content in noting by mathematical 
numbers and signs, as with things of far more import- 
ance in the terrestrial system, what we could but ill 



202 BOOTHIA 

distinguish in any other manner. . . . We fixed the 
British flag on the spot and took possession of the 
North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in 
the name of Great Britain and King William the 
Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building, 
in the fragments of limestone that covered the beach ; 
and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude, 
under which we buried a canister containing a record 
of the interesting fact ; only regretting that we had not 
the means of constructing a pyramid of more import- 
ance and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults 
of time and of the Eskimos. Had it been a pyramid 
as large as that of Cheops, I am not quite sure that it 
would have done more than satisfy our ambition, under 
the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this 
spot is 70° 5' 17", and its longitude 96° 46' 45" west." 

The Victoi~y in the short summer of 1 830 sailed a few 
miles further south and spent the winter in Victoria 
Harbour, to be there abandoned in May, 1832. Ross 
in his boats made for Fury Beach, where, at Somerset 
House, as he called it, he passed the following winter. 
On the 26th of August, 1833, when in his boats off the 
eastern mouth of Lancaster Sound, he was picked up 
by the Isabella, his old ship, and in her he reached the 
Humber in October of that year after four successive 
winters in the ice, having been enabled to make so long 
a stay by his fortunate find of the stores left by Parry. 

In 1824 Captain Lyon was sent out in the Griper to 
winter at Repulse Bay, and thence crossing the isthmus 
described by the Eskimos continue along to Franklin's 
Point Turnagain ; but the Griper was nearly wrecked 
in Rowe's Welcome and did not reach Wager River. 




H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED ^ e I '$£ >>'\'' 



J To face page 202 



VOYAGE OF THE " TERROR" 203 

The discoveries of Ross led to the renewal of this 
attempt by Captain Back in the Terror in 1836. He 
was to go to Wager River or Repulse Bay, and then 
make his way into Prince Regent Inlet, and so west ; 
but he became imprisoned in the ice off Cape Comfort 
during one of the severest winters known. Drifting up 
Frozen Strait amid most perilous experiences, the ship, 
lifted high above sea-level by pressure, lay at times 
almost horizontal. Once " they beheld," he says, " the 
strange and appalling spectacle of what may be fitly 
termed a submerged berg, fixed low down, with one 
end to the ship's side, while the other, with the purchase 
of a long lever advantageously placed at a right angle 
with the keel, was slowly rising towards the surface. 
Meanwhile, those who happened to be below, finding 
everything falling, rushed or clambered on deck, where 
they saw the ship on her beam-ends, with the lee boats 
touching the water, and felt that a few moments only 
trembled between them and eternity." 

Day after day the Terror defied the persistent effort 
of the ice to smash her, but suffering much in almost 
every timber she withstood it sufficiently to keep 
together. For four months she was entirely out of 
water, and when at last she was free, Back wrapped 
her up as best he could, and brought her home with 
the water pouring into her so that the men were so 
wearied out that they could hardly have continued at 
the pumps another day ; and he ran her ashore in 
Lough S willy only just in time. Upwards of twenty 
feet of her keel, together with ten feet of the sternpost, 
were driven over more than three and a half feet on 
one side, leaving a frightful opening astern for the free 



204 BOOTHIA 

ingress of water. The forefoot was entirely gone ; 
numbers of bolts were either loosened or broken ; and 
when, besides this, the strained and twisted state of the 
ship's frame was considered, there was not one on board 
who did not express astonishment that they had ever 
floated across the Atlantic. 

The next attempt to complete the coast of the 
American mainland was made from the land, and at 
the cost of the Hudson's Bay Company. Really it was 
the expedition proposed by Simpson some five years 
before, of which he would have been the leader had he 
not been shot ; and it was entrusted to the capable 
hands of Dr. John Rae. 

After wintering at York Factory, Rae reached 
Repulse Bay with two boats, the Magnet and North 
Pole, on the 25th of July, 1846, and in his usual style 
started immediately across the chain of lakes and 
portages which make up the isthmus that now bears 
his name, launching his boats in the tidal water of 
Committee Bay on the 1st of August. Stopped by 
ice on the west side and then on the east he returned 
to Repulse Bay, where he built Fort Hope of stones 
and roofed it with sails, and lived in it through the 
winter on what he could shoot and catch, for many 
weeks venturing on only one meal a day. Outside the 
men kept themselves warm chiefly by building snow 
houses and playing football ; inside, as the only fuel 
used was for cooking, the only thing they could do was 
to wrap themselves in furs, and trust to their natural 
heat in a temperature that ranged about zero. 

In April, with a couple of sledges, eight dogs, and 
five men, he crossed the isthmus again and went straight- 




FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR 



To face page 204 



FRANKLIN'S LAST VOYAGE 205 

away up the east side of Boothia to Ross's farthest 
south, thus completing that coast-line. Back he went 
to Fort Hope after a trip of nearly six hundred miles, 
to start again on the 12th of May up the west coast of 
the Melville Peninsula to Cape Ellice, which Parry had 
sighted from the strait on that side. And he was back 
once more at Fort Hope on the 9th of June. Thus 
the survey of the northern coast was complete with 
the exception of the gap between the Boothia isthmus, 
on the west side, and Castor and Pollux River of JDease 
and Simpson, which Rae in another famous effort from 
Repulse Bay was to link up later on. 

When Rae reached Lord Mayor's Bay on the east 
coast of Boothia, Franklin, with the Erebus and 
Terror, was off its west coast in the same latitude. 
This was the reappearance of the Terror in the north. 
After Back's voyage she had been repaired to sail with 
the Erebus, under Sir James Clark Ross, when he dis- 
covered the South Magnetic Pole ; and on their return 
the barques had been thoroughly overhauled and fitted 
with auxiliary screws, the first time that the screw 
propeller was used in Arctic work. Franklin was in the 
Erebus, the Terror being commanded by Francis R. M. 
Crozier as she had been in the Antarctic voyage. 
Crozier was one of Parry's men, he having been in the 
Fury in 1821 and in the Hecla on her two subsequent 
expeditions. 

The ships left England on the 19th of May, 1845, 
and were last seen and spoken with on the 26th of 
July in Melville Bay on their way to Lancaster Sound. 
According to information gained during the long series 
of searches, they passed through the sound and went 



206 BOOTHIA 

north for about a hundred and fifty miles, to 77°, up 
Wellington Channel into Penny Strait — the first time 
the passage had been made. Returning down the west 
side of Cornwallis Island, discovering the strait between 
it and Bathurst Island, they wintered at Beechey Island, 
where three of the men died and were buried ; and where 
the most significant relic was about seven hundred tins 
of preserved meat that seemed to have been condemned 
as bad, just as the stock of similar stuff had in the 
same year been condemned and thrown overboard at 
Portsmouth. 

Leaving Beechey Island in 1846, they went south 
down Peel Sound, being the first to pass through it, 
and Franklin Strait — another new discovery — to within 
twelve miles of Cape Felix in King William Land, 
where, on the 12th of September, they were beset 
about half-way between Cape Adelaide in Boothia and 
Pelly Point in Victoria Land. Hereabouts the second 
winter was passed, and on the 24th of May a party 
under Lieutenant Gore crossed the ice to Point Mctory, 
probably on a journey to examine the unknown coast 
between there and Cape Herschel. On the 11th of June, 
1847, Sir John Franklin died. The ships drifted a short 
distance during their imprisonment in the ice, and the 
third winter was passed some twenty miles further south 
down Victoria Strait, where, on the 22nd of April, 1848, 
when fifteen miles north-north-west of Point Victory, 
they were abandoned, and the officers and crews, a 
hundred and five in all, under Crozier's command, started 
for Back's Great Fish River, some of them completing 
the first North- West Passage in crossing Simpson Strait 
and reaching Montreal Island. 



KENNEDY AND BELLOT 207 

The first undoubted traces of the lost expedition were 
those discovered at Beechey Island, the news reaching 
England in the Prince Albert in the autumn of 1850. 
As soon as the winter was over this excellent little 
schooner was again sent out by Lady Franklin under 
the command of Captain William Kennedy, who took 
with him as a volunteer Lieutenant Joseph Rene Bellot 
of the French navy, and also John Hepburn, who had 
been with Franklin on the land journey in 1819. 
Kennedy wintered at Batty Bay in North Somerset, 
and during a remarkable sledge journey, in which he 
made the circuit of the island, he and Bellot reached 
Brentford Bay, and, on the 21st of April, 1852, dis- 
covered the strait named after the gallant Frenchman. 
But he found no traces of the expedition through turn- 
ing to the north and crossing to Prince of Wales Island, 
instead of going to the south at the western mouth of 
the strait. He had, however, discovered the termina- 
tion of Boothia, the north point of the American conti- 
nent which men had been seeking for three centuries. 

To the southern end of Boothia came the inde- 
fatigable Rae. That cheery hero of the north left 
Repulse Bay on the 31st of March, 1854, to complete 
the Hudson's Bay Company's survey. On the 20th of 
April he met a young Eskimo in Pelly Bay, who told 
him the fate of the Erebus and Terror, and from him 
and his people Rae obtained a number of small articles, 
forks and spoons and so forth, which had undoubtedly 
come from the ships, one of which had been crushed in 
the ice, the other sinking after drifting further south. 

Rae was not the man to return until he had attacked 
the work he had set out to do, and he continued his 



208 BOOTHIA 

surveying with his customary accuracy, despatch, and 
general alertness, striking across the peninsula, dis- 
covering the Murchison River, reaching Simpson's 
farthest at Castor and Pollux River, and thence proving 
the insularity of King William Land by travelling up 
the east coast of the strait now named after him — and 
he was back again in August. He had almost finished 
the survey of the northern coast-line ; and he had 
ascertained how and where Franklin's voyage had 
ended, for which discovery the British Government gave 
him the reward of £10,000, letting it be understood 
that so far as they were concerned the Franklin searches 
were at an end. 

But Lady Franklin thought one more effort should 
be made to unravel the mystery of her husband's fate, 
and there were many who thought the same. Helped 
to a certain extent by a public subscription, she organ- 
ised another expedition. The steam-yacht Fox was 
bought from the executors of Sir Richard Sutton and 
altered for Arctic work by her builders, the Halls of 
Aberdeen clipper fame. As leader went Captain, after- 
wards Sir, Frederick Leopold M'Clintock, who had 
done such brilliant sledge-work in the north ; like his 
second in command, Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, he 
gave his services gratuitously, as also did Dr. David 
Walker and Captain, afterwards Sir, Allen Young, 
then of the Mercantile Marine, who also subscribed 
£500 towards the fund. Carl Petersen, the Eskimo 
interpreter on the voyages of Penny and Kane, came 
to join from Copenhagen, having landed there from 
Greenland only six days previously. The British 
Government, although declining to send out an expedi- 






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LADY FRANKLIN'S INSTRUCTIONS 209 

tion, contributed liberally to the supplies, and sent on 
board all the arms and ammunition and ice-gear and 
every instrument that was asked for. 

Lady Franklin's instructions were so characteristic of 
the noble-hearted woman whose name can never be for- 
gotten in Arctic story that they must be given in full : — 

"Aberdeen, June 29, 1857. 
" My dear Captain M'Clintock, 

"You have kindly invited me to give you 
| Instructions,' but I cannot bring myself to feel that it 
would be right in me in any way to influence your judg- 
ment in the conduct of your noble undertaking ; and 
indeed I have no temptation to do so, since it appears 
to me that your views are almost identical with those 
which I had independently formed before I had the 
advantage of being thoroughly possessed of yours. 
But had this been otherwise, I trust you would have 
found me ready to prove the implicit confidence I place 
in you by yielding my own views to your more en- 
lightened judgment ; knowing too as I do that your 
whole heart also is in the cause, even as my own is. As 
to the objects of the expedition and their relative im- 
portance, I am sure that you know that the rescue of 
any possible survivor of the Erebus and Terror would 
be to me, as it would be to you, the noblest result of 
our efforts. 

" To this object I wish every other to be subordinate ; 
and next to it in importance is the recovery of the un- 
speakably precious documents of the expedition, public 
and private, and the personal relics of my dear husband 
and his companions. 

" And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to con- 
firm, directly or inferentially, the claims of my 



210 BOOTHIA 

husband's expedition to the earliest discovery of the 
passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and the 
Government of our country has accepted and rewarded 
it as such), these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at 
their last extremity, after five long years of labour and 
suffering, if not at an earlier period. 

" I am sure that you will do all that man can do for 
the attainment of all these objects ; my only fear is 
that you may spend yourselves too much in the effort ; 
and you must therefore let me tell you how much 
dearer to me even than any of them is the preservation 
of the valuable lives of the little band of heroes who 
are your companions and followers. 

"May God in His great mercy preserve you all from 
harm amidst the labours and perils which await you, 
and restore you to us in health and safety as well as 
honour. As to the honour I can have no misgiving. 
It will be yours as much if you fail (since you may fail 
in spite of every effort) as if you succeed ; and be 
assured that, under any and all circumstances whatever, 
such is my unbounded confidence in you, you will 
possess and be entitled to the enduring gratitude of 
your sincere and attached friend, 

"Jane Franklin." 

The men of the Fooo were worthy of the confidence 
placed in them. Leaving Aberdeen on the 1st of July, 
M'Clintock reached Disco on the last day of the month, 
and, proceeding northwards, was, by a perverse freak of 
fortune, beset in Melville Bay on the 8th of August, 
and kept imprisoned thence onwards all through the 
winter, drifting south through Baffin Bay and Davis 
Strait. On the 26th of April, 1858, after a drift of 
1194 geographical miles, the Fooc escaped from the 



PORT KENNEDY 211 

pack and steamed to the eastward amid the most 
perilous of ice experiences. Most men would have 
returned and tried again ; not so M'Clintock. He 
boldly ran up the Greenland coast as if nothing had 
happened and, making good deficiencies, resumed his 
voyage. Soon after leaving Sanderson's Hope the 
Fox was nearly wrecked near Buchan Island, remain- 
ing on a rock until the tide rose again to set her free. 
After calling at Beechey Island, M'Clintock followed 
Franklin's track down Peel Sound until stopped by the 
pack, when he retraced his course and tried Prince 
Regent Inlet, reaching Bellot Strait on the 21st of 
August. At Port Kennedy in this famous waterway — 
which is like a Greenland fiord, about twenty miles long 
and scarcely a mile wide at its narrowest part, the water 
four hundred feet deep within a quarter of a mile of 
its northern shore — he passed the winter. 

On the 1st of March he reached by sledge the Magnetic 
Pole and fell in with four of the Boothian Eskimos, 
who, at the cost of a needle each, built him a snow hut 
in an hour, in which they all spent the night. " Per- 
haps," says M'Clintock, " the records of architecture do 
not furnish another instance of a dwelling-house so 
cheaply constructed ! " Halting at Cape Victoria the 
Eskimos came up from their village close by with a 
number of small relics of the lost expedition. Return- 
ing to the Fox after a journey of four hundred and 
twenty statute miles in which the survey of the west 
coast of Boothia was completed, everything was made 
ready for three long sledge journeys of two sledges each, 
the captain taking that for Montreal Island, and giving 
Hobson the best chance of promotion by sending him 



212 BOOTHIA 

round the west coast of King William Land, while 
Young took the Prince of Wales Land route. 

On the east coast of King William Land M'Clintock 
met with more Eskimos, from whom he obtained relics 
and obtained information. Pushing on, he reached 
Montreal Island on the 15th of May, where the only 
traces of a boat were some scraps of copper and an 
iron-hoop bolt. A crossing to the mainland on the 
18th of May revealed no more ; and next day the 
return journey began. Six days afterwards, walking 
along a gravel ridge near the beach on the way to Cape 
Herschel, M'Clintock found the first skeleton, partly 
exposed, with a few fragments of clothing appearing 
through the snow, evidently one of the men who, as 
the old Eskimo woman said, fell down and died as they 
walked along. Visiting Simpson's cairn at Cape Hers- 
chel and meeting with nothing, he went on for about 
twelve miles, where he caught sight of a small cairn 
built by Hobson's party at their furthest south, reached 
six days before, containing a note with the great news 
that at Point Victory they had found what is now 
known as the Franklin record. 

This record, which has frequently been printed — in a 
smaller size than the original — was one of the navy 
bottle- papers with the request in six languages that 
it should be forwarded to the Admiralty. A pale blue 
paper, twelve and a half inches by eight, it was filled up 
in the ordinary way, and then added to round the four 
margins in the handwriting of Lieutenant Gore. Captain 
Fitz James, and Captain Crozier, and signed by these 
and C. F. Des Vceux. It had been first deposited four 
miles away, so it said, " by the late Commander Gore," 



THE FRANKLIN RECORD 213 

in 1847, and next year found by Lieutenant Irving, 
added to, and removed to the new cairn on the site of 
Sir James Ross's pillar. 

Brief as it was, it contained all the authentic informa- 
tion regarding Franklin's voyage up to the time the ships 
were abandoned. Resuming the return journey along 
the edge of the strait where the meeting of the Pacific 
and Atlantic tides keeps the ice drifting down from the 
north-west almost constantly packed, M'Clintock reached 
a boat with two skeletons and other relics already visited 
by Hobson, who had found other cairns and many 
relics, and, in Back Bay, another record by Gore, also 
deposited in 1847, but giving no additional news.- 

Hobson was dragged alongside the Fox, on the 14th 
of June, so ill with scurvy that he was unable to walk or 
even stand without assistance. M'Clintock arrived five 
days later ; and on the 27th Allen Young returned 
after an exploration of three hundred and eighty miles 
of coast-line, which, added to that discovered by 
M'Clintock and Hobson, gave a total of eight hundred 
geographical miles of new coast as the work of the 
expedition, besides what it had done in clearing up the 
Franklin mystery. 

In 1869 Captain C. F. Hall collected other relics 
and sufficient information to account for seventy-nine 
men out of the hundred and five who left the ships. 
Ten years after that, Schwatka, in his long, careful 
search of King William Land, discovered the grave of 
Lieutenant Irving, in which were some fragments of his 
instruments and the prize medal he won at the Royal 
Naval College. Near by were many traces indicating 
that it was the site of the first encampment of the 



214 BOOTHIA 

retreating crews after leaving their ships ; and down 
the coast he traced camp after camp, and death after 
death. Irving's remains were brought away and are 
buried at Edinburgh. The spot where they were found 
was Cape Jane Franklin. 

More fortunate than Franklin was Captain Roald 
Amundsen. Leaving Christiania in the Gjoa on the 
16th of June, 1908, he crossed the Atlantic and pro- 
ceeded down Peel Sound, past Bellot Strait, and along 
the west coast of Boothia, where a fire on the ship did 
a certain amount of damage, and, struggling thereafter 
for ten days among shoals and rocks, down James 
Ross Strait, past Matty Island into Rae Strait, he 
dropped anchor in Petersen Bay, King William Land. 
For his base station he required a site in which the 
inclination was eighty-nine degrees, and at Gjoahaven, 
in this bay, he found it in 68° 30' N., 96° W. 

Here he arranged his headquarters for his observa- 
tions on the Magnetic Pole which were kept going 
night and day for nineteen months ; and here he stayed 
for two winters, moving about in the country around 
and over into Boothia, where he proved that the Pole 
was not immovable and stationary, but in all likelihood 
in continual movement. Leaving the south-eastern 
corner of King William Land in his little ship he 
passed through Simpson Strait, linking up with Collin- 
son ; and, like him, he was delayed for a winter on the 
coast of the American mainland. Through Bering 
Strait he reached San Francisco, where the voyage 
ended in the sale of the Gjoa. Thus of Amundsen it 
can be said, without any qualification whatever, that 
he accomplished the North- West Passage. 



CHAPTER XI 
BAFFIN BAY 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert — Sir Martin Frobisher — His first voyage — The fateful 
stone — First meeting with the Eskimos — The Cathay Company — Second 
voyage — Third voyage — Frobisher builds a fort — The ships among the 
floes — Captain Hall finds the Frobisher relics — Adrian Gilbert — John 
Davis — His voyages and dealings with the Eskimos — Reaches and names 
Sanderson's Hope — The Traverse Book — William Baffin — His first voyage 
to Greenland — His fourth and fifth voyages — Discovers Baffin Land — Dis- 
covers Baffin Bay — Smith Sound— Jones Sound — Lancaster Sound — 
Baffin's farthest north — John Ross and Parry verify his discoveries. 

IN 1566 Humphrey Gilbert — who was as near to 
heaven by sea as by land — petitioned Queen 
Elizabeth for privileges in regard to discoveries " by 
the North-west to Cataia" as an alternative to a petition 
he, in conjunction with Anthony Jenkinson, had pre- 
sented the previous year for a voyage by the north- 
east. He received no answer ; but ten years afterwards, 
in support of this unanswered petition, he published 
his Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to 
Cataia. This met with approval, and led, with little 
delay, to the expedition under the Martin Frobisher 
who, among other noteworthy services, commanded 
the Triumph in the Armada fight to such good purpose 
that he was one of the five distinguished men knighted 
by Howard in mid-channel after the battle off the 
Isle of Wight. 

Frobisher was a good seaman — but no mineralogist. 

215 



216 BAFFIN BAY 

Mainly at the expense of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of 
Warwick, and under the business management of that 
old seafarer, Michael Lock, of the Muscovy Company, 
he left Blackwall on the 7th of June, 1576, in the 
Gabriel of twenty-five tons, accompanied by the 
Michael of twenty tons — which deserted and returned 
as soon as difficulties arose — and a ten-ton pinnace, 
which ended by foundering off Greenland. All told, 
the expedition numbered thirty-five, of whom the 
Gabriel carried eighteen ; and with these the voyage 
through the Arctic Ocean was to be made to China. 

Leaving the Shetlands at her top speed of a league 
and a half an hour — which her master, good Christopher 
Hall, proudly recorded — the Gabriel sighted Cape Fare- 
well on the 11th of July. Two days afterwards she 
was thrown on her beam-ends in a storm, and was 
rapidly filling with water flowing in at her waist when 
she was relieved by the loss of her fore-yard and the 
cutting away of her mizen-mast. Rounding the cape, 
steering westward when he could among the floating 
ice, Frobisher reached a high headland at the south- 
east end of what is now Frobisher Bay, which he 
named Queen Elizabeth Foreland. A few days after- 
wards Hall, out in a boat seeking a way through the 
ice for the ship, landed on what they called Hall's 
Island, and, noticing a fog coming on, left hurriedly, 
snatching up, as specimens of the plants, a few grasses 
and flowers, and, as a rock specimen, a heavy black 
stone picked up haphazard on the beach. The grass 
faded, the flowers perished, and the fateful stone 
remained. 

For fifty leagues Frobisher sailed north-westward 




SIR MARTIN FROBISHER 



To face page 216 



THE FATEFUL STONE 217 

into the bay, thinking it to be a strait with Asia on 
the right hand and America on the left. He landed 
at what he called Butcher's Island, saw " mightie deere 
which ranne at him and hardly he escaped with his 
life in a narrow way where he was faine to use defence 
and policie," and from a hill-top " perceived a number 
of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off whyche 
hee supposed to be porposes or seales or some kind of 
strange fishe but coming nearer he discovered them to 
be men in small boates made of leather," who only just 
failed in capturing his boat before he reached it. Subse- 
quent conferences with the Eskimos ended in his losing 
the boat with five men who had gone ashore to trade ; 
and finally, having lifted single-handed one of the 
interesting natives, kayak and all, into the Gabriel, he 
made sail for home. 

When Lock went aboard on the ship's arrival there 
were no riches from Cathay, nothing worth mention- 
ing beyond the Eskimo — who soon died — the kayak 
and paddle, and "the fyrste thynge found in the new 
land," the black stone. He carried away the stone, 
after chipping off a few fragments for the friends 
around, and after a week or two's consideration sent 
some of it to the Mint to be assayed. The report was 
not as he expected ; the " saymaster " was of opinion 
that it was marcasite, that is, iron pyrites. Not satisfied, 
Lock sent some to another expert, who also said it was 
pyrites. Then he tried a third man, who could find no 
gold in it. And then he tried a fourth — this time an 
Italian— who gave him the answer he wanted: "A very 
little powder of gold came thereout." 

Lock sent him some more, telling him frankly that 



218 BAFFIN BAY 

three other assayers "could find no such thing therein," 
but again the Italian was equal to the occasion. " The 
xviii day of January," writes Lock, " he sent me by his 
mayde this little scrap of paper written, No. 1, herein- 
closed ; and thereinclosed the grayne of gold, which 
afterward I delivered to your majesty." For the Queen 
had become interested in the wonderful stone which 
was the talk of the town, its value increasing at every 
recital until many believed, as Sir Philip Sidney seems 
to have done, that it was " the purest gold unalloyed 
with any other metals." 

Lock was not the man to let such excellent adver- 
tisement be lost, and forthwith he projected the Cathay 
Company for which the charter was obtained from the 
Crown on St. Patrick's Day, 1577. Lock was named as 
Governor for six years with remuneration " for ever " 
of one per cent on all goods imported ; Frobisher was 
named as Captain by sea and Admiral of the ships and 
navy of the Company for life with a yearly stipend and 
one per cent, like Lock, on all goods the Company 
brought in. Queen Elizabeth — notwithstanding the 
report from the Mint — headed the list of shareholders 
with £1000 ; and Burghley, Howard, Leicester, Wal- 
singham, Hunsdon, Sidney, even Gresham, subscribed 
for shares in this remarkable company. 

To bring home more of the "golden ore," a new 
expedition was entered upon at once, and on the 26th 
of May, Whit-Sunday as it happened, Frobisher 
started on his second voyage. He had three vessels, 
the Aid of two hundred tons, lent him from the 
Royal Navy, and the Gabriel and Michael as before, 
and one hundred and twenty officers and men, of whom 



FROBISHEITS SECOND VOYAGE 219 

thirty were miners and other landsmen, and, in addition, 
six condemned criminals whom he was to land in Green- 
land as colonists but put ashore at Harwich instead. 

To the new land — named by the Queen Meta 
Incognita, " the unknown limit of the outward course " 
— he made his way without much adventure. Land- 
ing on Hall's Island, he sought for more stone but 
could find not so much as a piece as big as a walnut ; 
for Hall, who was again with him as master, had 
apparently lighted, in the one sample, on the whole of 
its mineral wealth. This disappointment, however, was 
forgotten in the finding of occasional patches of pyrites 
on the mainland and other islands which in due course 
were visited. Thirty leagues up the bay a landing was 
made on what was called Countess of Warwick's 
Island, where more ore was found and a fort called 
Best's Bulwark was built. That was Frobisher's 
farthest on this voyage, and thence he sailed on the 
24th of August, bringing with him two hundred tons 
of pyrites, and, as a present for the Queen, a horn two 
yards long, wreathed and straight, which he had found 
in the nose of a dead narwhal. 

The ore was received with rejoicings. Some of it 
was deposited in Bristol Castle, some in the Tower of 
London under four locks, but there was not enough of it ; 
and as there were then, as now, no furnaces in England 
capable of getting gold out of marcasite, a new ex- 
pedition was despatched while the furnaces were being 
prepared. This time the enterprise was to be on a very 
different scale. Frobisher was given a fleet of fifteen 
vessels, Drake's old ship, the Judith, amongst them, the 
Aid, as before, being the flagship. He was to bring 



220 BAFFIN BAY 

home two thousand tons of mineral and find other 
mines, if he could, besides taking out a colony of a 
hundred persons to settle in Meta Incognita, for whom 
the materials of a wooden house were among the mis- 
cellaneous cargo. 

The fleet left Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578. A 
landing was made in the south of Greenland, which 
Frobisher named West England and took possession 
of, his point of departure from there being called by 
him, " from a certain similitude," Charing Cross ! Soon 
he was among the ice floes. One of the ships was driven 
on to a floe and sank with some of the materials for the 
wooden house. Then followed a storm in which most 
of the ships had a terrible experience. " Some," says 
Captain Best of the Ann Frances, the chronicler of the 
voyage, " were so fast shut up and compassed in amongst 
an infinite number of great countreys and ilands of ise, 
that they were fayne to submit themselves and their 
ships to the mercie of the unmercifull ise, and strength- 
ened the sides of their ships with junckes of cables, 
beds, masts, planckes, and such like, which being hanged 
overboord, on the sides of their shippes, mighte the 
better defend them from the outrageous sway and 
strokes of the said ise. But as in greatest distresse, 
men of best value are best to be discerned, so it is 
greatly worthy commendation and noting with what 
invincible mind every captayne encouraged his company, 
and with what incredible labour the paynefull mariners 
and poore miners (unacquainted with such extremities) 
to the everlasting renoune of our nation, dyd overcome 
the brunt of these so great and extreame daungers ; for 
some, even without boorde uppon the ise, and some 



FROBISHEITS THIRD VOYAGE 221 

within boorde, uppon the sides of their shippes, having 
poles, pikes, peeces of timber and ores in their hands, 
stood almost day and night, without any reste, bearing 
off the force, and breaking the sway of the ise, with 
suche incredible payne and perill that it was wonderfull 
to behold, which otherwise no doubt had striken quite 
through and through the sides of their shippes, not- 
withstanding our former provision ; for planckes of 
timber, of more than three ynches thick, and other 
things of greater force and bignesse, by the surging of 
the sea and billow, with the ise were shevered and cutte 
in sunder at the sides of oure ships, that it will seeme 
more than credible to be reported of. And yet (that 
which is more) it is faythfully and playnely to be proved, 
and that by many substantiall witnesses, that our 
shippes, even those of greatest burdens, with the 
meeting of contrary waves of the sea, were heaved up 
betweene ilandes of ise a foote welneere out of the sea 
above their watermarke, having their knees and timbers 
within boorde both bowed and broken therewith." 

To add to the difficulties of the voyage Frobisher 
lost his way, and entered what he called the Mistaken 
Streight — now designated Hudson Strait — through 
which he might have found his way to Cathay, had he 
been so minded ; but recognising that he was on the 
wrong road he returned and reached his mining district 
at the end of July. While the ore was being gathered 
in, Best ventured into the upper part of Frobisher Bay 
as far as the Gabriel Islands — the only exploring work 
that was done — and early in September the fleet de- 
parted on the homeward voyage. 

Frobisher had left one unmistakable indication of 



222 BAFFIN BAY 

his visit behind him. On Countess of Warwick Island 
he had built a house of lime and stone, and " the better," 
says Best, " to allure those brutish and uncivill people to 
courtesie, againste other times of our comming, we left 
therein dy vers of our countrye toyes, as bells and knives, 
wherein they specially delight, one for the necessarie 
use, and the other for the great pleasure thereof. Also 
pictures of men and women in lead, men a horsebacke, 
lookinglasses, whistles and pipes. Also in the house 
was made an oven, and breade left baked therein, for 
them to see and taste. We buried the timber of our 
pretended forte, with manye barrels of meale, pease, 
griste, and sundrie other good things, which was of the 
provision of those whyche should inhabite, if occasion 
served. And insteade therof we fraight oure ships 
full of ore, whiche we holde of farre greater price." 

Here we part from the Cathay Company. The in- 
evitable trouble came with the discovery that, practically, 
the only gold the ore would yield was that put in as an 
" additament " by the Italian. A very thick cloud 
rolled over Frobisher, who, like Lock, seems to have 
believed in the genuineness of the affair all through ; 
but soon his country had need of him and he came to 
the front again in so worthy a manner that little more 
was heard of his connection with this company that 
failed. 

To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred 
years afterwards) Captain Hall — hearing among the 
Eskimos how numerous white men had arrived first in 
two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had 
killed several natives and taken away two, how five of 
the white men had been captured, and how these had 




ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL 



T9 ft^e'page 222 



. JOHN DAVIS 223 

built a large boat and put a mast in her and sailed away 
to death when the water was open — went to Kod-lun- 
arn (White Man's Island) and there found the house of 
lime and stone as described, and traces of the diggings, 
and many relics among which he made the collection 
presented by him to the British Government. 

In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose 
Discourse gave so great a stimulus to Arctic discovery, 
founded St. John's, Newfoundland — the first English 
colony in America — a patent was granted by Queen 
Elizabeth to his brother Adrian " of Sandridge in the 
county of Devon," as one of the colleagues of the 
Fellowship for the Discovery of the North -West 
Passage. At this Sandridge — on the east of the Dart, 
bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles 
above Dartmouth — was the home of the three Gilberts 
(John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose mother by a 
second marriage became the mother of Carew and 
Walter Raleigh ; and here, about 1550, of a family 
also owning property in the small peninsula, was born 
John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as he 
signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and 
certainly a life-long friend, of these five. 

Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the 
Elizabethan navigators, and a man of accurate observa- 
tion, always on the alert, whose reputation does not 
rest only on the work he did in the northern and other 
seas, for he was the author of The Seaman's Secrets, 
the most popular practical navigation treatise of its 
time. Very early, perhaps from the first, he was one 
of the moving spirits in this new north-west enterprise, 
for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr. Dee — 



224 BAFFIN BAY 

who had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage 
— making an entry in his journal that Mr. Secretary 
Walsingham had come to his house, where by good 
luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began 
on " the north-west straits discovery " ; and, next day, 
" I, Mr. Awdrian Gilbert and John Davis, went by 
appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse, where only we 
four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of 
the N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were 
agreed upon in generall " — " rutter " being the French 
" routier," originating in Le Routier de la Mer, signify- 
ing a book of sea routes. Another important friend 
of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative 
of the merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage 
were borne, he being the chief subscriber. One of the 
ships, the Moonshine, seems to have belonged to him, 
and it was largely owing to his influence among the 
shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and 
chief pilot of the " exployt," in which he was to 
practically rediscover Greenland. 

There were two vessels, the Sunshine of London, 
fifty-nine tons, with twenty-three persons on board, 
and the Moonshine of Dartmouth, thirty-five tons, with 
nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June, 
1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the 
Scillies, where Davis occupied the twelve days he 
spent there in surveying and charting the islands. On 
the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast 
of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that 
Davis called it the Land of Desolation. Nine days 
afterwards he found a group of many pleasant green 
islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of 



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THE REDISCOVERY OF GREENLAND 225 

the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he 
landed on the west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named 
it, near where Godthaab now is, and entered into com- 
munication with the natives. 

For such occasions, apparently, he had among the 
Sunshine people four described as musicians, whom, on 
sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As soon as they 
arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a 
dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his 
men began to caper as if they were enjoying them- 
selves immensely, while the lookers-on gradually in- 
creased in number. " At length," he says, " one of 
them poynting up to the sunne with his hande would 
presently strike his brest so hard that we might hear 
the blowe. This he did many times, before he would 
any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the 
Mooneshine, was appointed to use his best policie to 
gaine their friendshippe : who strooke his breast and 
poynted to the sunne after their order : which when he 
had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and 
one of them came on shoare, to whom we threwe our 
caps, stockings and gloves, and such other things as 
then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and 
making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night 
comming we bade them farewell, and went aboord 
our barks." 

The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty- 
seven canoes came up to the ships, their occupants 
calling to the English to come on shore. " Wee not 
making any great haste unto them, one of them went 
up to the top of the rocke, and lept and daunced as 
they had done the day before, shewing us a seales 



226 BAFFIN BAY 

skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which 
he did beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a 
small drumme." Whereupon Davis manned his boats 
and went to the waterside where they were in their 
canoes, " and after we had sworne by the sunne after 
their fashion, they did trust us. So I shooke hands 
with one of them, and hee kissed my hand, and we 
were very familier with them. We bought five canoas 
of them, we bought their clothes from their backs, 
which were all made of seales skins and birdes skinnes : 
their buskins, their hose, their gloves, all being com- 
monly sewed and well dressed : so that we were fulb 
persuaded that they have divers artificers among them. 
Wee had a paire of buskins of them full of fine wooll 
like bever. Their apparell for heate, was made of bin 
skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe amon^ 
them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thick* 
thongs like white leather of a good length. Wee ha( 
of their darts and oares, and found in them that the^ 
would by no meanes displease us, but would give us 
whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfiec 
with whatsoever we gave them. They took great care 
one of an other : for when we had bought their boates, 
then two other woulde come and carie him away be- 
tweene them that had soulde us his." He describes 
them as "a very tractable people, voyde of craft 01 
double dealing, and easie to be brought to civiltie 01 
good order," the men of good stature, unbearded, 
small-eyed, " by whom, as signes would permit, w( 
understood that towards the north and west there was 
a great sea." 

During his stay among these islands he found con- 



DISCOVERY OF DAVIS STRAIT 227 

siderable quantities of wood — fir, spruce, and juniper — 
which whether it came floating any great distance or 
grew in some island near he did not discover ; but he 
thought it grew further inland because the people had 
so many darts and paddles which they held of little 
value and gave away for insignificant trifles. He also 
found " great abundance of seales " in shoals as if they 
were small fish ; but saw no fresh water, only snow 
water in large pools, and he notes that the " cliffes were 
all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought from Meta 
Incognita." 

Leaving the sound on the 1 st of August he crossed 
the strait now named after him and reached land in 
66° 40'. In water " altogether voyd from ye pester of 
ice " he anchored, " in a very fair rode, under a very 
brave mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold." 
This mount he named Mount Raleigh, the roadstead 
he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the mount he 
named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he 
called Dyer's Cape, the southern foreland being named 
Cape Walsingham — all of which names remain. Here 
white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a 
raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were 
found growing low like shrubs, and there were flowers 
like primroses, though there was no grass. 

For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and 
rounding the southern point of the peninsula, which he 
named the Cape of God's Mercy, he entered what he 
afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now Cumberland 
Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It 
was clear of ice ; sixty leagues up islands were found, 
among which a stay was made during five days of very 



228 BAFFIN BAY 

foggy foul weather. On the 15th of August "we 
heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had 
bene Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil 
them ; when we came on lande, the dogs came presently 
to our boate very gently, yet we thought they came to 
pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and killed 
two : and about the necke of one of them we found 
a letheren coller, whereupon we thought them to be 
tame dogs. " Then wee went farther and founde two 
sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was made 
of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch 
boards ; the other was made all of whale bone, and 
there hung on the toppes of the sleds three heads of 
beasts, which they had killed. We saw here larkes, 
ravens, and partriges " — probably rock ptarmigan. 

Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all 
islands, with sounds passing between them ; that the 
water remained of the same colour as the main ocean, 
whereas in every bay they had been into it became 
blackish ; that a shoal of whales they saw must have 
come from the west, because to the eastward no whale 
had been seen ; that " there came a violent counter 
checke of a tide from the southwest against the flood 
which we came with, not knowing from whence it was 
maintayned " ; that the further they ran westward the 
deeper was the water, " so that hard abord the shoare 
among these yles we could not have ground in 330 
fathoms " ; and that, lastly, there was a tide range of 
six or seven fathoms, " the flood comming from 
diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe 
maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was 
determined to continue the voyage to the westward if 



THE SECOND VOYAGE OF JOHN DAVIS 229 

the weather changed — which it did to worse with the 
wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for 
shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic 
from Greenland in a fortnight. On arrival Davis 
reported to Walsingham that the North-West Passage 
was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost 
to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air 
tolerable, and the waters very deep ; and a voyage for 
next year was decided on, for which the merchants 
of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and 
Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure 
their money" — to the amount of £1175 — "with Mr. 
Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a voyage for 
the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in 
the xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie 
Elizabeth." 

The fleet, consisting of the Mermaid of one hundred 
and twenty tons, the Sunshine and Moonshine, and a 
ten-ton pinnace named the North Star, left Dartmouth 
on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the 
Sunshine and North Star were sent up the east coast 
of Greenland, while the Mermaid and Moonshine made 
for Gilbert Sound. 

Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after 
they had espied in the boate, some of our companie 
that were the yeere before heere with us, they presently 
rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and 
hung about the boate with such comfortable joy as 
woulde require a long discourse to be uttered : they 
came with the boates to our shippes, making signes 
that they knewe all those that the yere before had 
bene with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal 



230 BAFFIN BAY 

feare of us, my selfe with the merchaunts, and others 
of the company went a shoare, bearing with me 
twentie knives : I had no sooner landed, but they lept 
out of their Canoas, and came running to mee and the 
rest, and imbraced us with many signes of hartie 
welcome : at this present there were eighteene of them, 
and to each of them I gave a knife : they offered 
skinnes to mee for rewarde, but I made signes that it 
was not solde, but given them of curtesie : and so dis- 
missed them for that time, with signes that they 
shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But 
soon there were passing troubles owing to iron having 
so great an attraction for them that they could not 
resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring the 
country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary 
known, a list of some forty words written down 
phonetically, most of them remarkably good approaches 
considering that both parties were ignorant of each 
other's language, none of them, however, except that 
for " sea " being likely to be of any use in putting him 
on the road to China. 

On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude 
63° 8' " fel upon a most mighty and strange quantity of 
ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as that we knew not 
the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in 
forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high 
cliffe land, as that we supposed it to be land, and there- 
fore sent our pinnesse off to discover it : but at her 
returne we were certainely informed that it was onely 
ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering 
the huge quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in 
truth as it was, and therefore I omit to speake any 



THE SHOAL OF CODFISH 231 

further thereof. This onely, I thinke that the like 
before was never seene, and in this place we had very 
stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty 
masse of ice untill the 30 of July, finding it a mighty 
bar to our purpose : the ayre in this time was so con- 
tagious, and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all 
hope was banished of proceeding : for the 24 of July 
all our shrowds, ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and 
compassed with ice, onely by a grosse fogge, as seemed 
to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I found this 
sea free and navigable, without impediments." 

Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the 
Moonshine in an excellent harbour among islands where 
they found it very hot and were " very much troubled 
with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did sting 
grievously." Forsaken by the Mermaid, he abandoned 
the search in Cumberland Sound as he "found small 
hope to pass any farther that way," and worked south, 
it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher 
Bay, which he described as " another great inlet neere 
forty leagues broad where the water entered with 
violent swiftnesse, this we also thought might be a 
passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are 
all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast 
shoal of codfish, of which he caught over forty with a 
long spike nail made into a hook. These he salted, and 
some of them, on his return, he gave, at Walsingham's 
request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged 
him to make a further attempt. 

Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles 
of the Molucca or the coast of China." He seems to 
have been on board the Ellen, a small craft of some 



232 BAFFIN BAY 

twenty tons, his two other vessels being the Sunshine 
as before, and the Elizabeth. These he left to fish for 
cod in the straits while he went northward from Gilbert 
Sound in his little " clinker," which he had probably 
chosen as being handy for ice navigation. Running 
along the land, to which he gave the name of London 
Coast, he reached 72° 12' — the highest north up to then 
attained — where he named the loftiest of the headlands 
Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest piercing through 
the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps 
the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here 
the wind suddenly shifting to the northward made 
further progress impossible, and he had to shape his 
course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in 
vain endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to 
turn southwards. Amid much fog, and with the ice 
always present, he came down the coast of Baffin Land, 
giving a name here and there on the way, until on the 
31st of July he passed " a very great gulfe, the water 
whirling and roring, as it were the meetings of tides," 
which was probably the entrance to Hudson Strait. 
Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named 
Cape Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of 
Magellan, and on the 15th of August he laid his course 
for England. 

Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book, 
one of the earliest known. In it the full detail is given 
for every day, arranged in nine columns, one each for 
the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the leagues, 
the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the 
wind, and a remarks column headed " The Discourse " 
— for Davis was an exact and systematic man remark- 




BAFFIN BAY IN 1819 



To face page 232 



234 BAFFIN BAY 

Shackleton, he took the middle passage across Melville 
Bay, coasting along by Cape York, by the cape named 
after one of his directors, Sir Dudley Digges, and the 
sound named after another of his directors, Sir John 
Wolstenholme ; along Prudhoe Land, entering the North 
Water of the whalers, reaching Cape Alexander in 
77° 45', his farthest north ; opening up and naming 
Smith Sound, after Sir Thomas Smith, another of his 
directors, and Jones Sound, after Alderman Sir Francis 
Jones, another of the board, and Lancaster Sound, 
after Sir James Lancaster of the East India Company. 
Thus, coasting Ellesmere Land, North Devon, Bylot 
Island, and Baffin Land, he continued his voyage from 
the north on his way home. A good piece of work: 
the discoveries so many and unexpected that people 
ceased to believe in them, geographers going so far &s 
to erase his bay from their maps until, two hundred 
years afterwards, Ross and Parry sailed over the land 
of the unbelievers and confirmed Baffin's work in every 
detail — and Ross, in his best mountain-finding manner, 
reported no thoroughfare at Smith Sound. 




DR. E. K. KANE 



To face page 234 



CHAPTER XII 
SMITH SOUND 

Captain Inglefield — Dr. Kane — The open Polar Sea — Hans Hendrik the 
Greenlander — Kalutunah the Eskimo — An Eskimo bear-hunt— A lesson 
in catching auks— Dr. Hayes — His journey over the glacier — Tyndall 
Glacier — Captain C. F. Hall — Joe and Hannah — Voyage of the Polaris — 
Drift of the Polaris — The voyage on the ice-floe — The British Government 
Expedition of 1875— The Alert and Discovery — The cairn on Washington 
Irving Island — Discovery Harbour — How the Alert got into safety at 
Floeberg Beach — Low temperatures— Nares on sledging — Description of 
the sledges and their burden — Markham starts for the Pole — Reaches 
83 d 20' 26" — Outbreak of scurvy — Parr's walk— Aldrich's journey west — 
— Beaumont's journey east — The perilous homeward voyage. 

LADY FRANKLIN, who incidentally did so much 
-/ for Arctic discovery, sent out the Isabel in 1852 
under Commander, afterwards Sir, Edward Augustus 
Inglefield to search for her husband to the north of 
Baffin Bay. Unlike John Ross, the names of whose 
ships, Isabella and Alexander, are borne by the capes 
at its entrance, he found Smith Sound to be the high- 
way to the north. Steaming up the open water 
" stretching through seven points of the compass," 
noting the coasts as he went, he was turned back by the 
ice in 78° 28', at the entrance to the Kane Sea, with 
Cairn Point and the way in to Rensselaer Harbour on 
his right, ard Cape Sabine and Ellesmere Land, which 
he named, on his left; the furthest north he sighted 
being Cape Louis Napoleon, the furthest east Cape 
Frederick VII, now known as Cape Russell. Needless 

235 



236 SMITH SOUND 

to say he found no Franklin traces, although he really 
looked for them. 

Twelve months afterwards Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in 
the United States brig Advance followed in his track 
and wintered in Rensselaer Harbour, nine miles further 
north. Ostensibly Kane was on a Franklin search, but 
his real object was the Pole. He explored the sea 
named after him, naming many landmarks, not always 
placing them in their true positions, and underwent 
many hardships. For one mistake he was famous for 
a time, and his reputation now suffers. One of his ex- 
pedition, William Morton, almost reached Cape Consti- 
tution, in about 80j°, which he placed some sixtj 
miles too far north, and described as the corner of the 
north coast of Greenland ; and from the southern hon 
of the bay of which it is the northern boundary he 
looked out over the south of Kennedy Channel, which 
is open every summer, and mistook it for the Polar 
Sea. And he returned with a report of an even more 
wonderful discovery than the Polar Sea, for, according 
to the illustration, he beheld the midnight sun dipping 
in its waters on Midsummer Day. 

In May, 1854, the month before Morton's discoveries, 
Dr. Hayes and William Godfrey crossed the Kane Sea 
to connect the northern coast with Inglefield's survey, 
" but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit from 
the bay," being, in fact, Ellesmere Land continued, and 
yet on reaching the shore for the first time at Hayes 
Point, three miles north of Cape Louis Napoleon, and 
following it for two miles to Cape Frazer, they quite 
unnecessarily named the country Grinnell Land. On 
the other side of this sea the chief discovery was 




KALUTUNAH 



To face page 236 



KALUTUNAH THE ESKIMO 237 

Kane's Humboldt glacier, some fifty miles north-east 
of their winter quarters, which was described as " the 
mighty crystal bridge which connects the two continents 
of America and Greenland," when, of course, it does 
nothing of the sort. 

What with sickness, accident, and other disaster, it 
became evident that the Advance would never leave her 
wintering place, and in July Kane set off" on a wild 
endeavour to reach Beechey Island and obtain relief 
from the Franklin search vessels, but he had to return. 
Next month Hayes was sent to Upernivik, but he also 
came back. Finally in May, 1855, the brig was aban- 
doned and the survivors began their journey to the 
south. Fortunately on the outward voyage Kane, at 
Fiskernaes, had engaged Hans Hendrik the Green- 
lander, then a boy of nineteen, who became quite a 
prominent figure in this and subsequent voyages, and 
without him and Kalutunah, chief of the Etah Eskimos, 
the whole party would have perished miserably. 

Hans first appears when spearing a bird on the wing; 
Kalutunah's first appearance was equally encouraging. 
" The leader of the party," says Kane, " was a noble 
savage, greatly superior in everything to the others of 
his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet 
as one who might rightfully expect an equal measure 
of it in return, and, after a short interchange of saluta- 
tions, seated himself in the post of honour at my side. 
I waited, of course, till the company had fed and slept, 
for among savages especially haste is indecorous, and 
then, after distributing a few presents, opened to them 
my project of a northern exploration. Kalutunah 
received his knife and needles with a ' Kuyanaka,' * I 



238 SMITH SOUND 

thank you ' ; the first thanks I have heard from a native 
of this upper region. He called me his friend 
' Asakaoteet,' ' I love you well ' — and would be happy, 
he said, to join the nalegak-soak in a hunt." 

And the journey ended in a hunt, for the dogs caughl 
sight of a large male bear in the act of devouring a seal. 
The impulse was irresistible ; Kane lost all control ovei 
both dogs and drivers, who seemed dead to everything 
but the passion of pursuit. Off they sped with in- 
credible speed ; the Eskimos clinging to their sledge j 
and cheering their dogs with loud cries. A mad, wik 
chase, wilder than German legend — "the dogs, wolves: 
the drivers, devils." After a furious run, the animj 
was brought to bay, and the lance and rifle did theii 
work. There were more bears and more hunts, an< 
when Kane objected that this could hardly be calle( 
northern exploration, he was told by Kalutunah, sig- 
nificantly, that the bear-meat was absolutely necessan 
for the support of their families, and that the nalegak- 
soak had no right to prevent him from providing foi 
his household. " It was a strong argument," sayj 
Kane, "and withal the argument of the strong." 

Bear-hunting hereabouts has its dangers, for the 
Eskimos of the north are not armed with bows anc 
arrows as are those of the mainland. When the be* 
is found the dogs are set upon the trail, and the huntei 
runs by their side in silence. As he turns the angle 
ahead his game is in view before him, stalking probabb 
along with quiet march, sometimes sniffing the an 
suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a clump of 
hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening in a 
wild wolfish yell, the driver shrieking " Nannook ! 



240 SMITH SOUND 

up the cliffs he crouched behind a rock and invited the 
doctor to follow his example. The slope on which the 
birds were congregated was about a mile long, and in 
vast flocks they were sweeping over it a few feet above 
the stones down the whole length of the hill, returning 
higher in the air, and so round and round in a complete 
circuit. Occasionally a few hundreds or thousands 
would drop down as if following some leader, and in 
an instant the rocks, for some distance, would swarm 
with them as they speckled the hill with their black 
backs and white breasts. The doctor was told to lie 
lower, as the birds noticed him and were flying too 
far overhead. Having placed himself as Kalutunah 
approved, the birds began to sweep lower and lower 
in their flight until their track came well within reach. 
Then, as a dense portion of the crowd approached, up 
went the net, and half a dozen birds flew into it, and, 
stunned by the blow, could not recover before the 
Eskimo had slipped the staff through his hands and 
seized the net. With his left hand he pressed down 
the birds, while with the right he drew them out one 
by one, and, for want of a third hand, used his teeth to 
crush their heads. The wings were then locked across 
each other ; and with an air of triumph the old chief 
looked around, spat the blood and feathers from his 
mouth, and went on with the sport, tossing up his net 
and hauling it in with much rapidity until he had 
caught about a hundred, and wanted no more. 

Hayes did his best to disparage both Kalutunah and 
Hans, to whom he was not quite so much indebted as 
Kane, owing to his having given himself a better chance 
of retreat by not taking the schooner out of Smith 





To face page 240 



THE HAYES EXPEDITION 241 

Sound, his quarters in Hartstene Bay being only some 
twelve miles north of Cape Alexander. He had come 
to verify the existence of the open sea and sail to the 
Pole across it if he could ; and he verified it to his 
own satisfaction. But he did not get so far north as 
Morton, although he claimed to have done so, for he 
climbed a cliff eight hundred feet high and looked out 
over the open water — in Kennedy Channel — and did 
not see the Greenland cliffs trending away northwards 
within thirty miles of him, and visible all the way up 
for two degrees north of Cape Constitution. Thus he 
left the map as Kane left it, with Greenland cut off 
short south of the eighty-first parallel, and his farthest 
seems to have been the south point of Rawlings Bay, 
where the Alert was forced on shore in August, 1876, 
in 80° 15'. 

" I climbed," he says, " the steep hillside to the top 

of a ragged cliff, which I supposed to be about eight 

hundred feet above the level of the sea. The view 

which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of 

the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous 

day. The ice was everywhere in the same condition as 

in the mouth of the bay across which I had endeavoured 

to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of 

the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other 

cracks as it meandered to the eastward, it expanded as 

; the delta of some mighty river discharging into the 

ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the 

northern horizon, it was lost in the open sea. The sea 

\ beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark 

[patches, these latter being either soft decaying ice or 

t places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These 






242 SMITH SOUND 

spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multi- 
plied in size as they receded, until the belt of the 
water-sky blended them all together into one uniform 
colour of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a 
quarter of a mile, and others miles across) and the 
massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which 
lay piled between them and around their margins, were 
the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness 
and solidity of winter." 

Unfortunately for Hayes, the astronomer of the 
expedition, August Sonntag, who had assisted Kane in 
the same capacity, was frozen to death on a sledge 
journey, and the doctor was left to do the work for 
himself, with disappointing results, as with errors of 
many miles in either latitude or longitude his journeys 
can only be noticed in a very general way. In October, 
1860, he proceeded for some distance over the glacier 
to the east of his wintering place. The first attempt to 
scale the glacier was attended by what might have been 
a serious accident. The foremost member of the party 
missed his footing as he was clambering up the rude 
steps, and, sliding down the steep side, scattered those 
who were below him to the right and left and sent them 
rolling into the valley beneath. The next effort was 
more successful, and, the end of a rope being carried 
over the side of the glacier, the sledge was drawn up 
the inclined plane and a fair start obtained. A little 
further on Hayes was only saved from disappearing 
down a crevasse by clutching a pole he was carrying on 
his shoulder. Next day, the surface being smoother, 
more progress was made, and they reached a plain of 
compact snow covered with a crust through which the 






THE JOURNEY ON THE GLACIER 243 

feet broke at every step. The day afterwards the cold 
grew more intense and a gale came on. At night the 
men complained bitterly and could not sleep, and as the 
storm increased in strength they were forced to leave the 
tent and by active exercise prevent themselves from 
freezing. 

To face the wind was impossible, and shelter was 
nowhere to be found upon the unbroken plain, there 
being but one direction in which they could move, that 
being with their backs to the gale. It was not without 
difficulty that the tent was taken down and bundled 
upon the sledge, the wind blowing so fiercely that they 
could scarcely roll it up with their stiffened hands. 
The men were in pain and could only hold on for a few 
moments to the hardened canvas, their fingers, freezing 
continually, requiring vigorous pounding to keep them 
on the flickering verge of life. " In the midst of a vast 
frozen Sahara, with neither hill, mountain, nor gorge 
anywhere in view," says Hayes, "fitful clouds swept 
over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descending 
toward the horizon, glimmered through the drifting 
snow that whirled out of the illimitable distance, and 
scudded over the icy plain, to the eye in undulating 
lines of downy softness, to the flesh in showers of 
piercing darts. Our only safety was in flight ; and like 
a ship driven before a tempest which she cannot with- 
stand, and which has threatened her ruin, we turned 
our backs to the gale ; and, hastening down the slope, 
we ran to save our lives. We travelled upwards of 
forty miles, and had descended about three thousand 
feet before we ventured to halt." 

Next year he visited the large glacier in Whale 



244 SMITH SOUND 

Sound which he named after Professor John Tyndall, 
pulling first along its front in a boat and then mounting 
its surface. As he rowed along within a few fathoms 
of this two miles of ice, he found the face " worn and 
wasted away until it seemed like the front of some vast 
incongruous temple, here a groined roof of some 
huge cathedral, and there a pointed window or a 
Norman doorway deeply moulded ; while on all sides 
were pillars round and fluted and pendants dripping 
crystal drops of the purest water, and all bathed in a 
soft blue atmosphere. Above these wondrous archways 
and galleries there was still preserved the same Gothic 
character ; tall spires and pinnacles rose along the 
entire front and multiplied behind them, and new forms 
met the eye continually. Strange, there was nothing 
cold or forbidding anywhere. The ice seemed to take 
the warmth which suffused the air, and I longed to pull 
my boat far within the opening and paddle beneath the 
Gothic archways." 

Charles Francis Hall, of Cincinnati, was a man of a 
very different stamp. He was a genius and a genuine 
worker, an accurate observer and painstaking explorer 
who believed above all things in thoroughness. 
Realising that the best way to study the Polar regions 
was to understand the Eskimos, who know most about 
them, and utilise their local knowledge, he settled 
amongst them, lived with them, adopted their customs, 
and became as one of them in their huts and tents, 
taking part in their sports and hardships. Two friends 
he made amongst them, Ebierbing and his wife Took- 
oolito, better known as Joe and Hannah, who accom- 
panied him till he died. 



CHARLES FRANCIS HALL 245 

After clearing up the Frobisher problem and throwing 
some light on the Franklin mystery, he started in 1871 
to go as far north as he could across the reported Polar 
Sea. To him Henry Grinnell, who did so much for 
northern discovery, entrusted the American flag which 
had been to the Antarctic with Wilkes in 1838, to the 
Arctic with De Haven, with Kane and with Hayes, 
and was a sort of oriflamme of Polar discovery. His 
ship was the Polaris, of 387 tons, once the Periwinkle, 
a name which seemed to be a little too unassuming. 
Buddington, his sailing-master, was an experienced 
whaling captain ; his assistant, Tyson, destined for the 
independent command of an ice-floe, was another 
whale -fisher. The naturalist was Emil Bessels. On 
board were also Joe and Hannah — of course — and 
William Morton, to show where the sea was, and, 
picked up at Upernivik, the indispensable Hans 
Hendrik with his wife and three children. 

The voyage was fortunate so long as Hall lived. 
The Polaris found the Polar gates open before her. 
She steamed right up Smith Sound, through Kane Sea, 
up Kennedy Channel, into Robeson Channel — named 
after the Secretary to the American Navy — until she 
reached the ice, in 82° 16', on the 30th of August, 1871, 
the highest latitude then attained by a ship. Hall 
would have pressed on into the ice, but Buddington 
wisely refused, and hardly had the Polaris been headed 
round when she was beset and carried southwards, to 
escape in a few days and take refuge for the winter in 
a harbour on the east of what is now known as Hall 
Basin, protected at its entrance by a grounded floeberg. 
The latitude is 81° 38', the harbour Hall called Thank 



246 SMITH SOUND 

God Bay. There in November he died ; and close by 
is Hall's Rest, where he is buried. 

His death was the end of the enterprise. Budding- 
ton wished to return as soon as the ship was released, 
and eventually had his way, after a journey or two of 
little importance. But he stayed too long. The ship 
was clear in June, and he did not start until the 1st of 
August, and he started by driving her into the pack, 
anchored her to a floe, and drifted helplessly into 
Baffin Bay, as De Haven had done through Lancaster 
Sound in 1850. For eleven weeks the drift continued 
until she was off Northumberland Island on the 15th 
of October. Here in the middle of the night a violent 
gale arose, and the crippled ship, nipped between two 
masses of ice, was lifted bodily and thrown on her side, 
her timbers cracking loudly and her sides apparently 
breaking in. Two boats, all she had, were hurriedly 
got on to the ice, and provisions, stores, and clothing 
were being passed out, when with a roar the floe 
broke asunder, and the Polaris disappeared like a 
phantom in the gale. As the ice cracked and the 
sides lurched apart, a bundle of fur lay across the 
fissure. A grab was made at it, and the bundle was 
saved. It contained the baby of Joe the Eskimo, 
whose wife had been confined the year before in lati- 
tude 82°, perhaps the most northerly birthplace of any 
of this world's inhabitants. 

On the ice were Tyson, with Sergeant Meyer, the 
steward, the cook, six sailors, and nine Eskimos, men, 
women, and children, including Hans and Joe. They 
built a house, from the materials thrown out from the 
ship, as a shelter ; and they built snow houses as the time 



THE VOYAGE ON THE FLOE 247 

went on and the floe diminished. Provisions they had 
but few, but Hans and Joe were indefatigable. They 
speared seals, caught fish, trapped birds, and, some- 
times, a bear would scramble up on to the ice for them 
to shoot — and they never missed. In short, without 
them the party would have starved to death. 

The floe on which the castaways passed the winter 
was about a hundred yards long and seventy-five broad. 
On this they voyaged down the whole length of Baffin 
Bay and through Davis Strait, the ice melting away 
and getting smaller and smaller as they drifted south, 
until on the 1st of April, when it was only twenty 
yards round, they had to take to the remaining boat, 
the other having been used for fuel. Once they nearly 
touched the shore, but the wind rose and off they were 
driven in the snow. When they were picked up by the 
sealer Tigress in 53° 35', near the coast of Labrador, on 
the 30th of April, they had drifted fifteen hundred miles 
in the hundred and ninety-six days that had elapsed 
since they left the ship. 

The Polaris, blown to the northward, reached land 
at Lifeboat Cove in the entrance to Smith Sound, a 
little north of Foulke Harbour, and here with the aid 
of the Etah Eskimos the crew passed the winter ; and, 
in the spring, some of them went on an expedition in 
the Hayes country and lost the famous flag. As the 
ship could not be made seaworthy, two flat-bottomed 
boats were built of her materials, and on the 21st of 
June these were found hauled up on a floe in Melville 
Bay, and their people rescued by the whaler Ravenscraig, 
which shifted them into the Arctic, another Dundee 
whaler, on board of which was Commander Markham, 



248 SMITH SOUND 

who, with Hans Hendrik, four years afterwards, was to 
follow up Hall's track to the north. 

The results of this expedition were of considerable 
importance. In five days Captain Hall had run five 
hundred miles through what on most occasions has been 
found to be an ice-choked sea. He completed the 
exploration of Kennedy Channel, discovered Hall 
Basin and Robeson Channel, and was the first to reach 
the Polar ocean by this route. Greenland and Grinnell 
Land he extended northward for nearly a hundred and 
forty miles ; and, north of Petermann Fiord, where he 
showed that the inland ice terminated, he had found a 
large area free from ice, with its wild flowers and 
herbage and musk oxen. 

Hall's remarkable success in taking a ship to so high 
a latitude led to the Government expedition of 1875, 
the first British attempt to reach the Pole since Parry's 
failure in 1827. Three ships were employed : the Alert, 
a seventeen-gun sloop ; the Discovery, once the Blood- 
hound, a Dundee whaler ; and the Valorous. The 
Alert and Discovery were specially prepared for the 
voyage at Portsmouth by Sir Leopold M'Clintock who 
was then Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard ; 
the Valorous, an old paddle sloop, required little altera- 
tion, as her duty was merely to carry the stores that 
could not safely be taken by the exploring vessels in 
crossing the Atlantic and hand them over at Disco. 

The leader, Captain George Strong Nares, when one 
of the Franklin search officers under Kellett at Melville 
Island, had distinguished himself by a sledge journey 
in which he had travelled nine hundred and eighty 
miles in sixty -nine days and reached 119j° west 




SIR GEORGE NARES 



To face page 24 



THE NARES EXPEDITION 249 

longitude. He was known as one of the best navigators 
in the Navy, and when called upon to go to the north 
was in command of H.M.S. Challenger, then on her 
famous voyage of scientific exploration in very different 
seas. With him in the Alert was Commander Albert 
Hastings Markham, whose experience, varied and con- 
siderable, gained by his spending much of his spare 
time within the Arctic Circle, rendered him especially 
well fitted for the position. In command of the Dis- 
covery was Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson ; and 
the officers of both ships were, like the crews, all 
specially selected. There was no difficulty in the 
manning. One commanding officer called at the office 
at Portsmouth where the men were being entered and 
asked for advice. " An order," he said, " has come on 
board my ship, directing me to send volunteers for 
Arctic service to this office. What am I to do ? The 
whole ship's company, nearly eight hundred men, have 
given in their names." 

The three ships left Spithead on the 29th of May, 
1875, and were all at Godhavn on the 6th of July. 
Nine days afterwards they left for Ritenbenk of the 
curious name, which is an anagram of that of Berkentin 
who was in charge of the Greenland department when 
it was founded. Here the Valorous parted company to 
return home after filling up with fuel at the coal 
quarries on the north side of Disco Island, while the 
two ships went to Proven to pick up Hans Hendrik, 
who this time left his wife and children behind him. 

Through Smith Sound, almost choked with ice, 
progress was slow and difficult ; but the passage was 
safely accomplished, and so across Kane Sea and up 



250 SMITH SOUND 

Kennedy Channel. On Washington Irving Island an 
ancient cairn was found, evidently the work of white 
men's hands and of great age, as shown by the state of 
the lichens on it — yet another of the many indications 
in the Polar regions that there was always a somebody 
before the first on record. Crossing the mouth of 
Archer Fiord, a snug harbour was found in 81° 44', 
where the Discovery was left to spend the winter, the 
Alert going on, hampered much by the floes, though 
helped at last by a south-westerly wind, until she had 
to stop in 82° 27' on the shore of the Polar Ocean, at 
what was named Floeberg Beach, off an open coast 
and with no more protection during the winter than 
was afforded by masses of ice ranging up to sixty feet 
in height aground in from eight to twelve fathoms of 
water. 

"The protected space," says Nares, "available for 
shelter was so contracted and shallow, the entrance to 
it so small, and the united force of the wind and flood- 
tide so powerful, that it was with much labour and no 
trifling expense in broken hawsers that the ship was 
hauled in stern foremost. It was a close race whether 
the ice or the ship would be in first, and my anxiety 
was much relieved when I saw the ship's bow swing 
clear into safety just as the advancing edge of the 
heavy pack closed in against the outside of our friendly 
barrier of ice. From our position of comparative 
security the danger we had so narrowly escaped was 
strikingly apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe 
at the power exerted by the ice driven past us to the 
eastward with irresistible force by the wind and flood- 
tide at the rate of about a mile an hour. The pro- 



FLOEBERG BEACH 251 

jecting points of each passing floe which grounded near 
the shore in about ten fathoms of water would be at 
once wrenched off from its still moving parent mass ; 
the pressure continuing, the several pieces, frequently 
thirty thousand tons in weight, would be forced up the 
inclined shore, rising slowly and majestically ten or 
twelve feet above their old line of flotation. Such 
pieces quickly accumulated until a rampart-like barrier 
of solid ice-blocks, measuring about two hundred yards 
in breadth and rising fifty feet high, lined the shore, 
locking us in, but effectually protecting us from the 
overwhelming power of the pack." The land had 
already assumed a wintry aspect, and the ship soon 
put on a garb of snow and ice, each spar and rope 
being double its ordinary thickness from the accumula- 
tion of rime. Around her everything was white and 
solemn ; no voice of bird or beast was heard ; all was 
still and silent save the gathering floes ; and in two 
days the men were able to walk on shore over the new 
ice. 

For eleven months she stayed here, secured by cables 
to anchors frozen on to the shore to protect her from 
gales on the landward side. With the ship housed in 
awnings of tilt-cloth, with snow a foot thick laid on 
the upper deck and banked up on each side as high as 
the main-chains, with skylights and hatchways carefully 
covered up, except two hatchways for ingress and 
egress constructed with porches and double doors so as 
to prevent the entrance of the bitter air, the crew here 
passed the long Polar night. On the 11th of October 
the sun disappeared, and then began those entertain- 
ments, lectures, lessons, games, not forgetting the 



252 SMITH SOUND 

Royal Arctic Theatre which opened on the 18th of 
November, with which the winter was pleasantly whiled 
away. " Can you sing or dance ? or what can you do 
for the amusement of others ? " every man had been 
asked before he was chosen, and the result was a 
singularly happy time kept up until sunrise. 

The cold was intense and long-continued. Even the 
tobacco pipes froze, the stem becoming solidly clogged 
with ice as the smoking went on unless it was made so 
short as to bring the bowl unpleasantly close to the 
mouth. On the 1st of April the temperature was 
down to minus 64°, and three days afterwards it was 
a hundred and five below freezing, the cold weather 
preventing the departure of the dog-sledge for Dis- 
covery Bay. 

During the autumn, sledging parties had laid out 
reserves of stores for the spring journeys, and a certain 
amount of practice had been given to the men in what 
was intended to be the chief work of the expedition. 
The field, however, was not promising. On one occa- 
sion Nares went out to look at it. He obtained a fine 
view of the pack for a distance of six miles from the 
land. The southern side of each purely white snow- 
covered hummock was brilliantly lighted by the orange- 
tinted twilight. The stranded floebergs lining the 
shore extended from half to three-quarters of a mile off 
the land. Outside were old floes with undulating 
upper surfaces separated from each other by Sherard 
Osborn's "hedgerows of Arctic landscape," otherwise 
ridges of pressed-up ice of every size. " It will be as 
difficult," was his verdict, " to drag a sledge over such 
ice as to transport a carriage directly across country in 



THE SLEDGES AND THEIR BURDEN 253 

England." He gave a lecture on sledging at one of the 
winter entertainments. It was interesting but not en- 
couraging. He told his hearers that if they could 
imagine the hardest work they had ever been called 
upon to perform in their lives intensified to the utmost 
degree, it would only be as child's play in comparison 
with the work they would have to perform whilst 
sledging. " These prophetic words," says Markham, 
" were fully realised, and were often recalled and com- 
mented on by the men." 

They had four different kinds of sledges. From the 
illustrations it will appear how the eight-feet sledges 
differed from those used by M'Clintock, the Nares 
sledge being higher and more slender in the uprights. 
The eight-men sledge, such as the Marco Polo— which 
was bound for the Pole — had six uprights eighteen 
inches apart. It was eleven feet long, thirty-eight 
inches wide, eleven inches high, and weighed one 
hundred and thirty pounds. The tent, made of light, 
unbleached duck, was nine feet four inches long at the 
bottom, eight feet at the top, seven feet wide and high, 
and weighed forty-four pounds. The tent poles, five 
in number, weighed five pounds apiece. The coverlet 
weighed thirty-one pounds and a half, and the extra 
coverlet twenty pounds. The lower robe weighed 
twenty-three pounds, the waterproof floor-cloth fifteen. 
The eight sleeping-bags weighed eight pounds apiece, 
and the eight knapsacks, when packed, twelve pounds 
apiece. The shovel and two pickaxes accounted for 
twenty-one pounds, the store-bag for twenty -five, the 
cooking gear for twenty-nine, the gun and ammunition 
for twenty-five, the medical stores for twelve, the 



254 SMITH SOUND 

instruments for fifteen, and the tent for nine and a 
quarter. To this must be added a thousand and eighty 
pounds for forty-five days' provisions for the eight men, 
and we have the total of sixteen hundred and sixty- 
four pounds odd, which with seven men at the ropes 
gives each man a drag of about two hundred and 
thirty-eight pounds. In the spring the weight de- 
creases as the provisions are consumed, but the rate of 
decrease is not the same in the autumn, for then the 
steadily falling temperature increases the weight of the 
outfit by the moisture it adds to the tent and clothing. 
In Markham's autumn journey the tent of thirty- two 
pounds came back as fifty-five, the coverlet as forty- 
eight, the lower robe as forty, the floor-cloth as forty, 
and everything else was heavier than at the start. 

The sledges mustered for their journeys on the 3rd of 
April. Seven in number, they were drawn up in single 
line according to the seniority of the leaders, all fully 
equipped and provisioned, and manned by fifty-three 
officers and men. On each was its commander's banner 
— a swallow-tailed flag charged with a St. George's 
cross and displaying the armorial bearings. As a pre- 
caution against snow-blindness, the men had been 
ordered to decorate the backs of their snow-jumpers 
with any device they thought fit, the result being a dis- 
play of comic blazonry that often formed a topic of 
conversation when others failed. For the same reason 
the two boats carried on the north-going sledges were 
gaily decorated with the royal arms, and the rose, 
shamrock, and thistle ; the artist, as on other occasions, 
being Doctor Moss, whose great difficulty in the matter 
was that in spite of the quantity of turpentine used in 



MARKHAM AND PARR 255 

mixing the paint it would persist in freezing so that the 
brush became as stiff as a stick every few seconds. 

Lieutenant Aldrich, supported for three weeks by 
Lieutenant Giffard, was to explore the shores of Grant 
Land, towards the north and west, along the coast-line 
he had discovered in the previous autumn. Commander 
Markham, seconded by Lieutenant Parr, was to accom- 
pany Aldrich to Cape Joseph Henry and then strike off 
to the northward over the ice. The other three sledges 
were to accompany these as far as their own provisions 
would allow, after completing the four's deficiencies and 
giving them a fresh start from an advance post. 

When Markham was only eleven days out, one of his 
crew complained of pain in his ankles and knees, and 
was of no help for the rest of the journey. This was 
the first appearance of the scurvy which was to ruin so 
many hopes, for man after man was taken ill and 
became a passenger. To make matters worse no 
rougher road was ever traversed by sledge. Over a 
labyrinth of piled-up blocks of ice ranging to forty feet 
and more in height, through which the road had to be 
cut with pickaxe and shovel, and amid gale and fog and 
falling snow, the painful progress went on. With many 
a " One ; two ; three ; haul ! " the heavy mass would be 
dragged where the men could hardly drag themselves ; 
one of the sledges taken a few yards by the combined 
crews, who would then return for the other. On the 
19th of April one of the boats was abandoned and this 
made matters easier, but only for a time, as the disease 
spread. At last it was decided to stop ; and on the 
12th of May a party of ten went ahead to reach the 
farthest north. 



256 SMITH SOUND 

"The walking," says Markham, "was undoubtedly 
severe, at one moment struggling through deep snow- 
drifts, in which we floundered up to our waists, and at 
another tumbling about amongst the hummocks. 
Some idea may be formed of the difficulties of the 
road, when, after more than two hours' hard walking, 
with little or nothing to carry, we had barely accom- 
plished one mile. Shortly before noon a halt was 
called, the artificial horizon set up, and the flags and 
sledge standards displayed. Fortunately the sun was 
favourable to us, and we were able to obtain a good 
altitude as it passed the meridian, although almost 
immediately afterwards dark clouds rolled up, snow 
began to fall, and the sun was lost in obscurity. We 
found the latitude to be 83° 20' 26" N., or three 
hundred and ninety-nine miles and a half from the 
North Pole." 

On the 8th of June Lieutenant Parr appeared on 
the quarter-deck of the Alert greeting in silence the 
one or two who chanced to meet him. That some 
calamity had happened was evident from his looks. 
He had walked on alone for forty miles to bring the 
news that Markham's party were in sore distress. 
Measures of rescue were instantly taken ; Lieutenant 
May and Doctor Moss, on snow-shoes, pushing ahead 
with the dog-sledge laden with medical stores, while 
Nares with a strong party followed. On their arrival 
one man had died, and of the others no less than 
eleven were brought back to the ship on the relief 
sledges. 

Ten days afterwards, fearing a similar fate had over- 
taken Aldrich's party, Lieutenant May was despatched 



ALDRICH AND BEAUMONT 257 

to find him. As with Markham, scurvy had begun on 
the outward journey, and it had become so bad on the 
return that one of the men was being sent off to the 
ship when May arrived with help. It had nevertheless 
been a successful journey, the road being easier than that 
by the northern route. Aldrich had traced the continu- 
ous border of the heavy pack for two hundred miles from 
Floeberg Beach, rounded Cape Columbia, in 83° 7' N., 
the northernmost point of Grant Land, and, along the 
coast trending steadily south-west, had reached longi- 
tude 85° 33' and sighted Cape Alfred Ernest in 
longitude 86j°. 

With his arrival there were over forty scurvy patients 
on board the Alert ; and Nares was to learn that the 
sledge parties from the Discovery had been similarly 
affected. Lieutenant Beaumont had gone along the 
North Greenland coast, reaching, on the 21st of May, 
51° W., in 82° 20' N., and sighting Cape May, Mount 
Hooker, and Cape Britannia. On the 10th of May, 
while on his outward journey, he had sent back Lieu- 
tenant Rawson to bring a relief party to meet him, and 
Rawson with Hans and eight dogs, accompanied by 
Doctor Coppinger, reached him on the 25th of June 
when he was on his last possible day's journey, he and 
two of his men dragging the sledge with four helpless 
comrades lashed on the top of it. 

The Discovery had also sent out Lieutenant Archer 
to survey the fiord named after him, which opens out 
into Lady Franklin Bay; and Lieutenant Fulford had 
crossed the channel and explored Petermann Fiord. 
In fact, the expedition's geographical work was of great 
extent, as was the other scientific work, the most im- 



258 SMITH SOUND 

portant, as usual, being that done from the ships. 
Among the odds and ends easily rememberable was the 
haul of the seine in Sheridan Lake, near the wintering 
station of the Alert, which yielded forty-three char 
(Salmo arcturus), the most northerly freshwater fish; 
the finding of the nest of the sanderling {Calidris 
arenarius), now in the Natural History Museum, in 
82° 33', and the discovery of the nesting of the grey 
phalarope and the knot in the same neighbourhood ; 
the thirty-feet seam of Miocene coal worked in Dis- 
covery Harbour ; and the Eskimo relics at Cape 
Beechey, near the eighty-second parallel, which, in 
connection with the encampments on the opposite 
coast, suggested that there, at the narrowest part of 
Robeson Channel, had been a crossing place from shore 
to shore. 

On the 31st of July, 1876, the Alert was again under 
steam after her long rest, and one of the most dangerous 
voyages on record began. The ships, of from five 
hundred to six hundred tons, were handled as if they 
were small tugs ; blocked, beset, pressed on shore, 
Nares with consummate skill, constant watchfulness, 
and never-failing patience, brought them through. But 
they did not get out of Smith Sound until the 9th of 
September, and then it was against head winds in , 
stormy weather amid icebergs innumerable that they 
were slowly worked southwards and homewards. 




BISHOP PAUL EGEDE 



To face page 258 



CHAPTER XIII 
GREENLAND 

Hans Egede— The house of Eric the Red — Nansen's crossing of Greenland — 
Nansen and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut — Nordenskiold's journeys — 
Berggren's discovery — Nordenskiold on the inland ice — Glaciers and ice- 
bergs — Diatoms and whales — Edward Whymper's expedition — Greenland 
in Miocene times — Graah — Scoresby — Ryder — The Germania and Hansa 
— The Duke of Orleans — The Eskimos of Clavering Island — Franz Josef 
Fiord — The drift of the Hansa — The Greely expedition — The International 
Polar stations— Voyage of the Proteus — Lockwood reaches 83° 24' — Greely's 
wagon — The Eskimo house at Lake Hazen — Greely Relief expeditions — 
The rescue of Greely — Peary — His journey to Independence Bay — His 
four years' expedition — Reaches 84° 17'— His Polar expedition of 1905 — 
The Roosevelt — The voyage to Cape Sheridan — Plan of the northern ad- 
vance — Peary reaches 87° 6' — Moxon's mariner. 

HANS EGEDE, aged twenty-two, priest of the 
parish of Vaagen, in the north of Norway, 
reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the west 
— and apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda — 
was led to think that some of their descendants might 
still be living in heathenism. Writing to the Bishop 
of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a 
missionary. The good father rather astonished him by 
the reply that " Greenland was undoubtedly part of 
America, and could not be very far from Cuba and 
Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of 
gold," and, as those who went to Greenland might 
bring home "incredible riches," he approved of the 
suggestion. 

259 



260 GREENLAND 

Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter 
without the knowledge of his wife, who by no means 
thought with the Bishop until seven years afterwards, 
when she changed her mind. Trying in vain locally, 
Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark, 
who finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man, 
gave him his patronage, the result being that a com- 
pany was formed at Bergen for the development of 
trade and the propagation of the gospel ; and, on the 
3rd of May, 1721, the Hope set sail from there for 
Greenland with forty-six intending colonists, including 
the missionary and his wife and family. 

His landing-place was on an island at the mouth 
of Godthaab Fiord, or Baal's River. He found the 
Greenlanders very different from what he had sup- 
posed ; and also that the Dutch were carrying on a 
profitable trade with them and keeping it quiets To 
begin with they were nothing like Vikings in appear- 
ance ; and their language, instead of being a Scandi- 
navian dialect, was of the same character as that of 
the Eskimos of Labrador — and not at all easy to learn. 
Learn it, however, he and his family did ; and among 
the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with 
truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for 
life amid much disaster until, with the help of his 
son Paul, who succeeded him as superintendent of the 
mission with the title of bishop, the settlement became 
permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the 
western coast as they are found to-day. 

Though there were no Norsemen, there were many 
traces of them, the most interesting being the house of 
Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close to Erik's 




From a photo by Dr. H. Rink 



GREENLANDERS 



To face page 260 



THE HOUSE OF ERIC THE RED 261 

Fiord and overlooking Einar's Fiord, on one of the 
prettiest sites in Greenland, was Brattelid — " the steep 
side of a rock " — one side of it a natural cliff, the walls 
of the other sides, more than four feet thick, built of 
blocks of red sandstone from four to six feet in length 
as well as in breadth and thickness, reminding the 
visitor of those of Stonehenge, and evoking similar 
wonderment as to how they were got into place. And 
in his first colony, now called Igdluernerit, Egede 
seems to have followed the Norsemen — at an interval — 
in their architecture, to judge by the large stones in 
the walls of his house, which, like Eric's, is now in 
ruins. 

Twelve years after Egede, came the Moravians to 
take up their quarters at Ny Herrnhut, also at the 
mouth of Godthaab (that is, Good Hope) Fiord. It 
was here that Nansen and Sverdrup landed in October, 
1888, having rowed up from Ameralik Fiord in their 
I half a boat," as the Eskimos called it. 

" Are you Englishmen ? " they were asked. 

"No," said Nansen, in good Norse, "we are Nor- 
wegians." 

" May I ask your name ? " 

"My name is Nansen and we have just come from 
the interior." 

" Oh, allow me to congratulate you on taking your 
doctor's degree ! " 

From which it is clear that Godthaab is not so much 
out of the world as one would suppose. 

Nansen with his three Norsemen and two Lapps had 
reached the east coast in the Jason, and on the 17th of 
July had left the ship in their boats to make their way 






262 GREENLAND 

to the shore ; but they had been caught in the floes, 
and on them and among them they had drifted for 
twelve days — an experience they had not bargained for. 
Getting ashore at last near Cape Tordenskiold, they 
worked their way back northwards along the coast, 
spending a short time at an Eskimo encampment at 
Cape Bille, until on the 15th of August they hauled 
their two boats up near Umivik and started to cross 
Greenland over the inland ice. 

The country is now in its glacial period, and for days 
they toiled across its glacial desert ; each day alike in its 
wearisome monotony. " Flatness and whiteness were 
the two features of this ocean of snow," says Nansen; 
" in the day we could see three things only, the sun, 
the snowfield and ourselves. We looked like a diminu- 
tive black line feebly traced upon an infinite expanse of 
white. There was no break or change in our horizon, 
no object to rest the eye upon, and no point by which to 
direct the course. We had to steer by a diligent use of 
the compass, and keep our line as well as possible by 
careful watching of the sun and repeated glances back 
at the four men following and the long track which the 
caravan left in the snow. We passed from one horizon 
to another, but our advance brought us no change." 

By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their 
skis on which they made great progress alone, but when 
it came to hauling the sledges there was a difference. 
Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going, 
particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was 
no better than sand. One entry in Nansen's journal 
will suffice : "It began to snow in the middle of th 
day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was wors 




ON LEVEL GROUND 



To face page 262 



NANSEN CROSSES GREENLAND 263 

even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in 
blue clay will scarcely give an idea of it. At every 
step we had to use all our force to get the heavy 
sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who 
had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were 
pretty well done up." 

When at last the wind became favourable they 
hoisted sail, and off they went over the waves and drifts 
of snow at a speed that almost took their breath away; 
and when they reached the western slopes they slid 
down them using the sledges as toboggans. At first 
they had intended making for Christianshaab, but the 
route had to be changed for that to Godthaab, and 
the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here 
they stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a frame- 
work of withies, and with oars made of canvas stretched 
across forked willows and tied to bamboo shafts, 
Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the 
waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny 
Herrnhut on the 3rd of October. Such was the first 
crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable instance of 
daring endeavour. 

Further north, Nordenskiold, in 1883, had attempted 
to cross over the ice-cap from near Disco on the west 
coast, but, hindered and finally stopped by crevasses 
and other obstacles, could do no more than send 
his Lapps to try their best on their skis, and 
they returned after their journey eastwards of a 
hundred and forty miles reporting similar monotonous 
conditions all along their track. Thirteen years 
before, he had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out 
with Berggren ; and deserted by their followers, they 



264 GREENLAND 

had gone on by themselves for some thirty miles east 
of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this occa- 
sion that Berggren discovered Ancylonema, that small 
polycellular alga forming the dark masses that absorb a 
far greater amount of heat than the white ice and thus 
cause the deep holes that aid in the process of melting. 

" The same plant," says Nordenskiold, " has no doubt 
played the same part in our country ; and we have to 
thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of ice which 
formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and 
America have now given place to shady woods and 
undulating cornfields." 

Nordenskiold looked upon Greenland and its icefield 
as a broad-lipped, shallow vessel with chinks in the lip, 
the glacier being viscous matter within it. As more is 
poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking the 
lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as 
that of its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out 
by force of the superincumbent weight of snow just as 
does the grain on the floor of a barn when another 
sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already there. 
When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along 
the bottom under water for a considerable distance, in 
some cases, as near Avigait, for more than a mile. This 
is where the water is too shallow for it to affect the 
mass, which forms a breakwater ; though as a rule the 
shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less. 
It was long supposed that the berg broke from the 
glacier by force of gravity, but this is not generally so. 
The berg is forced off from the parent glacier by the 
buoyant action of the sea from beneath ; the ice groans 
and creaks ; then there is a crashing, then a roar like 



DIATOMS AND WHALES 265 

the discharge of artillery ; and with a great regurgitation 
of the waves the iceberg is launched into life. These 
huge floating islands of ice are the most conspicuous 
exports of Greenland ; and their true magnitude is not 
realised until it is remembered that only about an 
eighth of their bulk appears above the water. Bergs as 
large as liners we frequently hear of — one such is shown 
in our illustration — but sometimes they are of much 
greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported 
as extending along the horizon are invariably groups of 
several crowded together. 

Ancyhnema has evidently plenty to do. Another 
instance of the important part played by the insignificant 
in these regions is suggested by the colour of the sea. 
This varies from ultramarine blue to olive-green, from 
the purest transparency to striking opacity ; and the 
changes are not transitory but permanent. These 
patches of dark water abound with diatoms, while the 
bluer the water the fewer are the diatoms ; and where 
they are most numerous, there the animals that feed on 
them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these 
animals are jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater 
extent, pteropods, their chief representative being Clio 
borealis. In short, the animals that feed on the diatoms 
are food of the Greenland whale, and where the waters 
are dark the whale-fishers thrive. " I know nothing 
stranger than the curious tale I have unfolded," says 
Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out this remarkable 
chain, " the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again 
supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there 
to feed on it, and these again supporting the huge 
whale. Thus it is no stretch of the imagination to say 



266 GREENLAND 

that the greatest animal depends for its existence on a 
being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed 
together before they are visible to the naked eye." 

Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters 
were different. In token of this we have the Miocene 
fossils collected by Edward Whymper during his 
expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were 
described and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the Philo- 
sophical Transactions for 1869. A look at these is a 
welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice. Here, as 
well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are 
the leaves and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora. 
Magnolias, maples, poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies; 
myrica, smilax, aralia ; sedges and grasses, conifers and 
ferns : these at the least were all growing in Greenland 
in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago 
the climate must have been milder than now, to judge 
by the farming reports of the colonists who seem to 
have been quite at home along the coast, which, with 
its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that 
of Norway. 

Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the 
Norsemen, W. A. Graah, in 1829, wintered at 
Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the site, although 
he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must 
be on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention 
to that region only, finding Eskimos who had never 
seen a white man and starting a trading intercourse 
which led to most of them migrating to the less incle- 
ment west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby, 
who in 1822 charted the main features of the sea-front 
from 69° to 75°. Ryder, seventy years afterwards, filled 



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KOLDEWEY'S EXPEDITION 267 

in the details of much of Scoresby's work, and found 
Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823, 
when in the Griper during Sabine's observations at 
Pendulum Island. 

It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32', that Karl 
Koldewey, after his preliminary run to 81° 5' in 1868, 
took the Germania to winter during the German ex- 
pedition of 1869. The two vessels, the Germania, a 
small two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and 
forty-three tons, built specially for Arctic service, 
and the Uansa, only half her size, which had been 
strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on 
the 9th of July, and, hidden from each other by fog, 
sailed northwards for five days. On the fifth evening 
the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred yards in 
front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs. 

For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to 
find an opening to the north. Then, on the 20th, the 
Germania ran up a signal to approach and communi- 
cate, which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeat- 
ing it and making sure, the Uansa put up her helm, 
fell off, crowded on all sail, and disappeared in the fog. 
Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to get through the 
pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine 
days afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on 
the 27th, he reached Pendulum Island, where he made 
the Germania snug for the winter, which proved to be 
remarkably mild. 

The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords 
met with abundant vegetation and herds of reindeer 
and musk oxen, and were visited by bears who had not 
learnt to be wary of man ; and when the bears came 



268 GREENLAND 

back with the sun in February they were as trouble- 
some as those of Ice Haven to the Dutchmen. Several 
sledge parties went out in the spring, and, notwith- 
standing inadequate equipment, did excellent work. 
In April, 1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1', almost up to 
Lambert Land, otherwise the Land of Edam. Here, 
looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it was 
"a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on 
their sledges they ran back to the ship. But in 1905 
the Duke of Orleans arrived on the coast to reach 
78° 16' and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on 
an island and their Dove Bay a strait. 

In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the 
glaciers and mountains were well explored, and an 
attempt was made to measure an arc of the meridian, 
which proved to be rather rough work among such 
surroundings. The snowstorms were particularly piti- 
less and heavy, and the travelling decidedly bad. The 
thaw began about the middle of May, and there was 
more sledging through pools than usual, so that they 
did not want variety in their occupations. On the 
14th of July boating became practicable, and a voyage 
was made to the Eskimo village found by Clavering 
in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village 
proved to be deserted and the huts in ruins — an un- 
welcome discovery, for, as M'Clintock says in reference 
to it : "It is not less strange than sad to find that a 
peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast- 
line of at least seven degrees of latitude, has died out, 
or has almost died out, whilst at the same time we find, 
by the diminution of the glaciers and increase of animal 
life, that the terrible severity of the climate has under- 



FRANZ JOSEF FIORD 269 

gone considerable modification. We feel this sadden- 
ing interest with greater force when we reflect that the 
distance of Clavering's village from the coast of Scot- 
land is under one thousand miles. They were our 
nearest neighbours of the New World." 

A little north of the seventy-third parallel Koldewey 
discovered on his way home the magnificent Franz Josef 
Fiord. Here the grandest scenery in Greenland is to 
be found along its deep branches winding among the 
mountains, one of which, Mount Petermann, is over 
eleven thousand feet high. As the Germania entered 
this remarkable inlet, which extends inland for some five 
degrees of longitude, a fleet of icebergs were sailing out 
of it with the current ; the farther she advanced the 
warmer seemed the temperature of the air and surface 
water, and the wilder and more impressive became the 
grouping of the mighty cliffs and peaks with their lofty 
waterfalls and raging torrents and deep glacier-filled 
ravines. It was the great geographical discovery of the 
expedition. 

Meanwhile Hegemann, trying to pass to the north 
more to the westward, got the Hansa beset on the 9th 
of September some twenty-four miles from Foster Bay. 
As the ice-pressure threatened to become too great for 
the vessel to resist, an elaborate house was planned and 
built on the floe. Briquettes were used for the walls, 
the joints were filled up with dry snow on which water 
was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into a com- 
pact mass. The house was twenty feet long, fourteen 
feet wide, and four feet eight inches high at the sides, 
with a rising roof consisting of sails and mats covered 
with deep snow. Into this house, which took a week 



270 GREENLAND 

to build, provisions for two months were carried, 
besides wood and fuel. The boats were put out, a 
flagstaff was set up, and quite a little settlement was 
started on the ice ; and no sooner was it completed than 
a violent snowstorm, lasting for five days, buried both 
the ship and the house. The ice increased around, and, 
the pressure of the accumulation lifting the Hansa 
seventeen feet above her original level, everything of 
value was removed from her on to the ice and into the 
house. On the 22nd of October she sank, having 
drifted below the seventy-first parallel ; and all through 
the winter the floe, which was about two miles across, 
leisurely made its way to the south. 

Off Knighton Bay Christmas was kept with all 
possible honour. The briquette house was decorated 
with coloured-paper festoons, and, by the light of the 
sole remaining wax candle, the genial Germans made 
themselves merry around a stubby Christmas tree 
devised out of an old birch broom. Three weeks after- 
wards the floe cracked beneath the dwelling. There 
was barely time to take refuge, but all hands were 
saved in the boats. For two days they remained in them, 
poorly sheltered from the storm and unable to clear out 
the snow. Then a smaller house was built of the ruins 
of the old one, but it was only large enough for half 
the party ; and as the spring advanced the floe de- 
creased, breaking away at the edges as did that on 
which the Pola?is people drifted to Labrador. 

At the end of March it entered Nukarbik Bay and 
there it stayed four weeks, caught in an eddy, slowly 
moving round and round just far enough from the 
shore to render an attempt at escape impossible ; twice 





I ', 



N 



i 



HEGEMANN'S DRIFT 271 

a day they went in with the tide and out with the tide, the 
ice too bad for the boats and never promising enough 
for a dash to the land. Having become thoroughly 
acquainted with this portion of the coast with its bold 
range of hills, its deep bays, its inlets, headlands, and 
islands, a storm came on which cleared them out of the 
eddy and drove them further south. Three weeks after 
that the floe had become so diminished by the lashing 
of the surge that it was hardly a hundred yards across, 
and large fragments were slipping off every hour. 

They had been on it for two hundred days and 
drifted eleven hundred miles when, on the 7th of May, 
water-lanes opening shorewards, they took to the boats 
and ventured among the masses of ice, making for the 
south. At first they had their difficulties in being 
compelled to haul up on the floes to pass the night or 
wait for a favourable wind, which meant severe work in 
unloading and reloading. Once during their painful 
progress of more than a month they were kept on a 
floe for six days by gales and snow-showers. Finally, 
after a long desperate effort, they reached Illuilek 
Island, and thence proceeded close inshore among rocks 
and ice to Frederiksdal, a couple of hours' walk from 
the southernmost point of the Greenland mainland, 
Cape Farewell being part of an island twenty-eight 
miles further to the south-east. On the 21st of June, 
eight days afterwards, they were at Julianehaab, whence 
they sailed to be landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of 
September, just ten days before the G-ermania steamed 
into Bremen. Thus the expedition, by its two divisions, 
ice-borne and ship-borne, had skirted nearly all that 
was then known of the east coast from end to end. 



272 GREENLAND 

On the north coast, Beaumont's discoveries were 
extended by Lieutenant James B. Lockwood for ninety- 
five miles, the trend of the shore taking him up to 
83° 24', three minutes and thirty-four seconds nearer 
the North Pole than Markham reached out on the sea. 
This was on the 13th of May, 1882, during the ill-fated 
A. W. Greely expedition. Like most American ex- 
peditions up to then this began well and ended badly, 
worse, in fact, than any ; and unlike them, and all others, 
it consisted entirely of soldiers — as if a detachment of 
Royal Engineers had been sent north on ordnance 
survey work. It was, however, more miscellaneous, 
for among its twenty-three members were representa- 
tives of three cavalry regiments, six infantry regiments, 
and an artilleryman. 

This was to be the garrison of the International 
Circumpolar Station at Lady Franklin Bay. The idea 
of a ring of stations round the Pole for the study of 
the natural phenomena for which the Arctic regions 
afford so wide and important a field was not new, but 
it was first reduced to definiteness and its adoption 
secured by Karl Weyprecht of the Austro- Hungarian 
expedition of 1872. At a meeting of German scientific 
men at Gratz, in September, 1875, he procured assent 
to his general principle that the best results in Arctic 
inquiry were to be obtained by subordinating geo- 
graphical discovery to physical investigation. It had 
long been evident that the most valuable results had 
been obtained by the ships and fixed observatories, and 
that the toilsome work of the sledges in their successive 
approaches by a few more miles towards a mathematical 
point, though most interesting to read about, had really 



GREENLAND 




100 O 100 200 300 400 5or * 



To face page 272 



THE INTERNATIONAL STATIONS 273 

been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily 
light equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of 
isolated attempts at irregular intervals, Weyprecht 
suggested that the better way would be to attack the 
subject systematically by a group of expeditions at 
permanent stations working together long enough at 
the same time for their observations to be dealt with as 
part of a general scheme ; and the suggestion was 
approved although he did not live long enough to see 
the stations occupied. 

Three International Polar Conferences were held, in 
1879 and the two following years, at Hamburg, Berne, 
and St. Petersburg, at the last of which it was arranged 
that the stations should be fourteen in number, two in 
the south and twelve in the north, these twelve being 
— (1) The Austrian at Jan Mayen ; (2) the Danish at 
Godthaab; (3) the Finnish at Sodankyla in Uleaborg; 

(4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound ; 

(5) the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the 
Great Slave Lake ; (6) the Dutch at Dickson Harbour 
at the mouth of the Yenesei ; (7) the Norwegian at 
Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord ; (8) the Russian at 
Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya ; (9) the second 
Russian on Sagastyr Island in the Lena Delta ; (10) the 
Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen; (11) the 
American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H. 
Ray, who met with marked success and brought his 
men all home in safety ; and (12) the second American 
at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S. 
Discovery, which Greely renamed Fort Conger. 

In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the 
scheme, Greely's work was complicated by having 



274 GREENLAND 

tacked on to it Howgate's proposal of another dash for 
the Pole, his instructions requiring him to send out 
"sledging parties in the interests of exploration and 
discovery." Further, his expedition was fitted out in 
a way that almost invited disaster. Let one instance 
suffice. " In speaking of this instrument," he explains, 
" it is necessary to say that a dip-circle was especially 
made for the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, but it 
was by error shipped to the United States Coast Sur- 
vey. On calling for it, when the duplicate instrument 
ordered could not be had in time, the late Mr. Carlisle 
Patterson, then Superintendent, promptly promised that 
it should be sent on to me at New York. On the day 
of my sailing, a dip-circle, carefully boxed, was received ; 
but on opening it at St. John, an old, rusty, unreliable 
instrument was found in the place of the new circle. 
This resulted in unsatisfactory and incomplete observa- 
tions at Conger, for the old circle having upright 
standards instead of transverse ones, as in the new, but 
one end of the needle could be read. It must alway 
be a matter of regret that this unwarrantable and un 
authorised substitution by some person was made, which 
materially impaired, if not effectually destroyed, the 
value of our two-years' dip-observations." This sort of 
thing reduced International Polar Research to a farce 
and the same spirit appeared in other departments, 
more seriously than all in the relief proceedings, which 
were conducted in a way that could only lead to starva- 
tion. 

In August, 1881, the Proteus, with the expedition 
on board, made her way up Smith Sound and Kennedy 
Channel without serious hindrance until she entered 



■! 



LOCKWOOD'S JOURNEY 275 

the south-eastern part of Lady Franklin Bay, where 
the close, heavy pack brought her to a stop within 
eight miles of her destination. She had come seven 
hundred miles from Upernivik in less than a week, and, 
faced by ice twenty to fifty feet thick, she had to wait 
another seven days before she got into Discovery 
Harbour. Here the party landed and a house was 
built, and dissension arose which ended in one of the 
company returning in the ship and another endeavouring 
to do so and being too late, so that he had to remain as 
a sort of tolerated volunteer. Two others were sent 
away as being physically unfit ; but, making up for 
these, were two Eskimos engaged at Upernivik. 

Preliminary sledging began at once, and in the spring 
the two great efforts were made. The doctor's, towards 
the Pole, left on the 19th of March and got adrift on 
a floe from which the party escaped with the loss of 
their tent, provisions, and some of their instruments. 
According to Greely's report : " The farthest latitude 
attained by this party is given by Dr. Pavy as 82° 56', 
it being estimated, as no observations for time, magnetic 
declination, or latitude were made at any period during 
his absence." 

On the 3rd of April, Lockwood with twelve men 
left for the coast of Greenland. Up to Newman Bay 
four men had been sent back as unfit for field-work. 
On the 16th, when the party started from here for the 
north-east, Lockwood and Christiansen, the Eskimo, 
were in advance hauling about eight hundred pounds 
with a team of eight dogs, a three-men sledge follow- 
ing, and then two two-men sledges ; at Cape Bryant 
the men-sledges were sent back, and Lockwood, 



276 GREENLAND 

Brainard, and the Eskimo went on with the dog-sledge. 

Cape Britannia was reached on the 5th of May, and 

on the 13th they camped at Lockwood Island, and 

there, for the first time, Americans reached a farthest 

north. 

" I decided to make this cape my farthest," reported 
Lockwood, "and to devote the little time we could 
stay to determining accurately my position, if the 
weather would allow, which seemed doubtful. We 
built a large, conspicuous cairn, about six feet high 
and the same width at the base, on the lower of two 
benches. After repitching the tent Sergeant Brainard 
and I returned to the cairn, and collected in that 
vicinity specimens of the rocks and vegetation of the 
country, the sergeant making almost all the collection. 
We ascended without difficulty to a small fringe of 
rocks, which seemed from below to form the top. The 
ascent, at first very gradual, became steeper as we went 
up, but we had no difficulty, as for some distance below 
the summit the surface is covered with small stones, 
as uniform in size, position, etc., as those of a macadam- 
ised road. Reached the top at 3.45 p.m. and unfurled 
the American flag (Mrs. Greely's) to the breeze in 
latitude 83° 24' N. (according to last observation). The 
summit is a small plateau, narrow, but extending back 
to the south to broken, snow-covered heights. It com- 
manded a very extended view in every direction. The 
barometer, being out of order, was not brought along, 
so I did not get the altitude. The horizon on the land 
side was concealed by numberless snow-covered moun- 
tains, one profile overlapping another, and all so merged 
together, on account of their universal covering of 



GREELY'S WAGON 277 

snow, that it was impossible to detect the topography 
of the region. To the north lay an unbroken expanse 
of ice, interrupted only by the horizon." 

On Midsummer Day Greely started with a four- 
wheel wagon to explore Grinnell Land. The wagon, 
in the men's vernacular, was a man-killer, and was 
abandoned after they had dragged it a hundred miles. 
On this journey much exploring work was done in the 
unknown country, the most interesting find being that 
of the Eskimo house at Lake Hazen. In this, accord- 
ing to Greely 's description, there were two fireplaces, 
one in the east and the other in the south, both of 
which had been built outward so as to take up no part 
of the space of the room, which was over seventeen 
feet long and nine feet wide. The sides of the entire 
dwelling were low walls of sodded earth, lined inside 
with flat thin slates, the tops of which were about two 
feet above the level of the interior floor, and the bench 
was covered with flat slabs of slate. Near by was a smaller 
house of the same character, and around were a large 
number of relics, including walrus-ivory toggles for 
dog -traces, sledge-bars and runners, an arrow head, 
skinning knife, and articles of worked bone. Next 
year further explorations of the back country were 
undertaken, so that some six thousand miles of the 
interior were viewed, disclosing many fertile valleys 
with their herds of musk ox. 

Meanwhile the Neptune, with supplies for Fort 
Conger, had in August, 1882, been vainly endeavouring 
to get north, and, a few miles from Cape Hawks, had 
turned back with the pack piling the ice as high as her 
rail. Six attempts she made before she gave up and 



278 GREENLAND 

retreated, after making several deposits of stores at 
Cape Sabine and elsewhere. In July, 1883, the Proteus, 
making a similar attempt to reach Greely, was crushed 
in the ice off Cape Albert, her side opening with a 
crash while the men were working in the hold, the ice 
forcing its way into the coal-bunkers and then pouring 
in so that as soon as the pressure slackened she went 
down, escape to the south being effected in the boats. 

Next year, matters having become serious, a naval 
expedition consisting of the Thetis, the Bear, and 
Nares's old ship the Alert, presented by the British 
Government, was placed in the capable hands of 
Commander Winfield Schley, who had with him George 
Melville of Jeannette fame as engineer of the Thetis, 
and matters were conducted in quite a different way 
under much more favourable circumstances. Schley 
intended to find Greely, at all costs, and he did so. 
First he found a cairn at Brevoort Island, in which 
were the papers deposited by Greely relating how he 
had had to come south owing to shortness of supplies, 
and how his party were then — 21st of October, 1883 — 
encamped on the west side of a small neck of land 
distant about equally from Cape Sabine and Cocked 
Hat Island. 

As it was then the 22nd of June, 1884, and they had 
had only forty days' complete rations to live upon, 
Schley hurried off at once. Had he been two days 
later he would have been too late. There was a tent 
wrecked by the gale, with its pole toppling over and 
only kept in place by the guy ropes. Ripping it up 
with a knife, a sight of horror was disclosed. On one 
side, close to the opening, with his head towards the 






RESCUE OF GREELY 279 

outside, lay what was apparently a dead man. On the 
opposite side was a poor fellow, alive but without hands 
or feet, and with a spoon tied to the stump of his right 
arm. Two others, seated on the ground, were pouring 
something out of a rubber bottle into a tin can. 
Directly opposite, on his hands and knees, was a dark 
man with a long matted beard, in a dirty and tattered 
dressing-gown with a little red skull cap on his head, 
and brilliant staring eyes. As Colwell appeared, he 
raised himself a little, and put on a pair of eyeglasses. 

" Who are you ? " asked Colwell. 

The man made no answer, staring at him vacantly. 

" Who are you ? " again. 

One of the men spoke up. " That's the Major — 
Major Greely." 

Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying 
to him, " Greely, is this you ? " 

" Yes," said Greely in a faint, broken voice, hesitating 
with his words ; " yes — seven of us left — here we are — 
dying — like men. Did what I came to do — beat the 
best record." 

Near at hand were ten graves. The bodies, despite 
Greely 's remonstrances, were taken up and removed 
for burial in the United States. " Little could be seen 
of the condition of the bodies, as they had been clothed, 
and all that appeared was intact. In preparing them 
subsequently," says Schley, " it was found that six had 
been cut and the flesh removed." One of these, that 
of a cavalryman serving under the assumed name of 
Henry, had a bullet in it. He had been shot, at 
Greely's written order, " for stealing sealskin thongs, 
the only remaining food." 



280 GREENLAND 

The next to add to our knowledge of the northern 
coast of Greenland was Robert E. Peary, of the 
American Navy, who seems to have devoted his life 
to Arctic exploration. On his first expedition in 1886, 
he penetrated with Maigaard for some distance into 
the country in the neighbourhood of Jakobshavn as 
a sort of pioneering venture. In 1891, accompanied 
by his wife, when outward bound in the Kite in the 
Melville Bay pack, he had his leg broken. The ship 
had been butting a passage through the spongy sheets 
of ice which had imprisoned her, when in going astern 
a detached cake struck the rudder, jamming the tiller 
against the wheel-house where Peary was standing, 
and pinned his leg long enough to snap it between the 
knee and the ankle. In spite of this he insisted on 
being landed with the rest of the party at McCormick 
Bay, a little to the north of Whale Sound, where a 
house was built and the winter spent. 

Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge 
across North Greenland through snow and over it, and 
over snow-arched crevasses, often, in cloudy weather 
travelling in grey space with nothing visible beyond 
a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days' 
journey to the north-east and along Peary Channel, the 
northern boundary of the mainland, he left the inland 
ice for a strange country dotted with snowdrifts and 
mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams, 
roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow - buntings 
formed an agreeable change from the silence of the 
desert of snow. Four days' hard labouring through 
this brought him on the 4th of July to Independence 
Bay on the north-east coast, where from Navy Cliff, 





S&.J&.' 



/to face pagj |§p° 



PEARY'S EXPEDITIONS 281 

nearly four thousand feet high, he looked across to 
Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond 
it over the region leading down to the farthest north 
of the Duke of Orleans. " It was almost impossible," 
he says, "to believe that we were standing upon the 
northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the 
summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant 
sunshine all about us, with yellow poppies growing 
between the rocks around our feet, and a herd of musk- 
oxen in the valley behind us. Down in that valley 
I had found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and 
had seen the bullet-like flight and heard the energetic 
buzz of the humble-bee." 

Next year he and his wife were out again to take up 
their quarters at a house they built at Bowdoin Bay, 
where, in September, their daughter was born. In 
March, 1894, he started for another journey across 
Greenland, with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs, 
but severe weather drove him back after travelling 
some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter 
instead of returning in the Falcon, he set out in the 
spring, and under almost desperate circumstances 
managed to reach and return from Independence Bay. 

Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which 
he spent four winters in the Arctic regions and almost 
met with Petersen's fate by a venturesome winter 
sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his 
feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in 
Grinnell Land he proved beyond doubt that it was 
continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had been admitted 
by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track, 
he continued it up to 83° 54', along Hazen Land, prac- 



282 GREENLAND 

tically completing the coast-line to Cape Henry Parish, 
its furthest east, thus rounding the north of the Green- 
land archipelago, and even there finding traces of 
Eskimos and a fauna similar to that of other Arctic lands 
hundreds of miles further south. And striking north- 
wards over the sea from Cape Hecla, with seven men and 
six dog-sledges, into the breaking, drifting pack, he made 
a dash for the Pole which ended at 84° 17'. 

His next northern venture, though not more remark- 
able, is destined, perhaps, to be remembered longer. 
On it he sighted the new land away out in the sea 
north-west of Grinnell Land, nearer to the Pole than 
any other land discovered up to then, and where it was 
expected to be. And out over the ice he went to 
eclipse his 1902 record by nearly two hundred miles, 
in the best planned of all his journeys. 

In July, 1905, he had left New York in the Roosevelt, 
a steamship of over six hundred tons and more than 
a thousand horse-power, rigged complete as a three- 
masted coasting schooner, able to hold her own almost 
anywhere in the event of her engines becoming useless. 
One hundred and eighty-two feet in length, thirty-five 
and a half in beam, and sixteen and a quarter in depth ; 
sharp in the bow and rounded amidships ; treble in 
framing and double in planking, with sides thirty 
inches thick, twelve feet of deadwood in her bow, and 
six feet of false keels and kelsons, she was specially 
built for the expedition as the strongest and most 
powerful vessel ever sent on Arctic service, and was 
launched on the 23rd of May, 1905, Mrs. Peary 
naming her by smashing a block of ice against her 
ironclad stem. 



VOYAGE OF THE " ROOSEVELT " 283 

A month out from New York, the Roosevelt left 
Etah laden deep with coal from the Eric that had 
awaited her there, and having on board over fifty 
Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two 
hundred Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions 
at Bache Peninsula, she worked up through open 
water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where 
the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally 
rammed his way across to the eastern side, and so con- 
tinued northwards. When off Cape Lupton the ship 
received such rough treatment that the rudder was 
twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as 
she ground along the face of the ice-foot "with a 
motion and noise like that of a railway-car which has 
left the rails " ; but this was the only time she was in 
serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting 
for six days in Newman Bay to repair damages and 
make ready for a final effort, she was headed westward 
to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a con- 
tinuous battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot 
at Cape Sheridan, a little north of the old winter 
quarters of the Alert, and found her wintering place, 
like her, just as the Polar pack closed in against the 
shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter 
Bay, twenty-seven miles further north, but the state 
of the ice made this impossible. 

Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred 
and fifty musk oxen had been shot by the 1st of Novem- 
ber, and there were numbers of hares and several herds 
of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson in his 
second voyage three hundred years ago. During the 
very mild winter eighty of the dogs died, and when 



284 GREENLAND 

sledging began only twenty teams of six each were 
available. The plan of the northern advance over the 
ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles 
each, with snow houses at each station, the nearest 
station being supplied from the base and supplying the 
next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line of 
communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole, 
the sledges working backwards and forwards, outwards 
laden and inwards empty, between station and station 
along the line. 

The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape 
Joseph Henry. At 84° 38' a lead in the pack stopped 
the way for six days until the young ice was thick enough 
to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard 
drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for 
another six days. On the 20th of April a region of 
much open water was reached, and from midnight to 
noon next day the last effort was made by Peary, 
Henson, and a small party of Eskimos, the farthest 
north, 87° 6', being attained and immediately left in a 
rapid retreat for safety. 

Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by 
thirty-two minutes or thirty- seven statute miles, both 
being stopped by water with apparently similar condi- 
tions ahead of them. What the conditions may be 
along the intervening two hundred miles from Peary's 
farthest nobody knows ; but although a good many 
things may happen between London and York, which 
is about the same distance, there is good reason for 
supposing that, even if there be land somewhere, the 
road is over a sea more or less packed with ice which 
is never without its channels. 



MOXON'S MARINER 285 

One thing is clear : the attainment of the Pole is a 
matter of money. Given the funds, the men and the 
dogs, and the ships, boats, sledges, and other things 
will be forthcoming, and the journey accomplished, not 
by a rush, but on some systematic station-to-station 
plan ; though it is not impossible that it may be done 
by chance in some exceptional year, for the climate of 
the north is variable and has a wider range of tempera- 
ture than that of Britain in its good years and its bad 
years. 

Let us hope there may be land at the exact spot, for 
then the position can be checked at leisure, and there 
will be no doubt of its having been reached. Joseph 
Moxon, Hydrographer to the King, in 1652 met at 
Amsterdam a sailor of a Greenland ship which " went 
not out to fish that summer, but only to take in the 
lading of the whole fleet to bring it to an early 
market" — in other words, to act as a carrier — which 
ship, before the whaling fleet had caught enough to 
lade her, had by order of the Company sailed to the 
North Pole and back again, and even two degrees 
beyond it ; no land seen, no ice, and the weather as it 
was in summer-time at Amsterdam. 

A sailor's yarn told in a tavern ? Only this and 
nothing more, perhaps ; though a good many things 
were kept dark in the whaling trade as in other trades. 
But if there had been an island at the Pole we might 
eventually have been able to verify that ancient 
mariner's tale. 



INDEX 



Abruzzi, Duke of, The, 76 

Academy Land, 281 

Actinia Haven, 87 

Advance, The, 183, 236 

Aid, The, 218, 219 

Akaitcho, 150, 156, 160 

Alaska, 134 

Aldrich, Pelham, 255 

Alert, H.M.S., 248, 278 

Alexander, The, 179 

Alexander, Cape, 234, 235 

Alexandra Land, 75 

Alexandria, H.M.S., 179 

Alfred Ernest, Cape, 257 

Ameralik Fiord, 261 

America, The Norse discovery of, 3 

Amundsen, Roald, 178, 214 

Ancylonema nordenskioeldii, 264 

Anderson Falls, The, 163 

Andre'e, S. A., 104 

Anjou, P. F., 108 

Ann Frances, The, 220 

Antelope, 126 

Archangel, 6 

Archer, Colin, 91 

Archer Fiord, 250, 257 

Archer, R., 257 

Arctic, The, 247 

Arctic Search Expedition, The first, 7 

Assistance, H.M.S., 183, 184 

Atlassof, 128 

Augustus the Eskimo, 157, 159, 160 

Auk, Cape, 69 

Auleitsivik Fiord, 263 

Aurora Borealis, The, 67 

Austin, Horatio, 183 

Austria Sound, 68 

Avigtait, 264 

Baal's River, 260 

Back, George, 38, 149, 151, 156, 160, 

203 
Baden-Powell, Sir George, 105 
Baffin, William, 15, 233 
Baffin Land, 233 



Banks Land, 172, 176, 182 

Baranoff Cape, 85 

Barents Bay, 49 

Barents, Willem, 9, 49 

Barnacle Goose, The, 12 

Barren Grounds, The, 156, 159 

Barrington, The Hon. Daines, 29 

Barrow Point, 137, 167, 273 

Barrow, Sir John, 178 

Barrow Strait, 180 

Bathurst Island, 180, 206 

Bear, Black, 110 

Bear Island, 12 

Bear, Polar, 11, 12, 23, 27, 28, 52, 

73, 74, 88, 99, 186, 238, 267 
Bear, The, 278 
Beaufort Sea, The, 173 
Beaumont, Lewis Anthony, 257 
Beechey, Cape, 159 
Beechey, Frederick William, 35, 137 
Beechey Island, 180, 183, 186, 206 
Belanger, 151 
Belcher, Edward, 184 
Bellot, Joseph Rene', 183, 207 
Bellot Strait, 197 
Bennet, Stephen, 12 
Bennett Island, 107, 117, 126 
Bering Strait, 85, 127 
Bering, Veit, 130 
Berry, Captain, 141 
Bessels, Emil, 245 
Best, George, 220 
Best's Bulwark, 219 
Bille, Cape, 262 
Bird Cape, 12 
Birds, 12, 88, 113, 114, 141, 160, 172, 

181, 228, 239, 258, 280 
Bismarck, Cape, 268 
Bjarni discovers America, 2 
Bjelkof Island, 107 
Blossom, H.M.S., 137 
Boat Extreme, 167 
Bolscheretzkoi, 131 
Bona Confidentia, The, 5 

„ Esperanza, The, 5 



287 



288 



INDEX 



Booth, Felix, 194 
Boothia, 190 
Borough, Steven, 6 

„ William, 8 
Bosekop, 273 
Bounty Cape, 180 
Bowdoin Bay, 281 
Bowen, Port, 193 
Bradley, Thomas, 4 
Brainard, D. L., 276 
Brattelid, 261 
Brentford Bay, 197, 207 
British Channel, 75, 99 
Brorok, Cape, 82 
Brown, Robert, 265 
Brunei, Olivier, 9 
Brunn, Mount, 71 
Buchan, David, 33, 157 
Buchan Island, 211 
Buddington, J. M., 245 
Bulun, 124 
Bunge, A., 126 
Burrough Strait, 7 
Bush, Henry, 129 
Butcher's Island, 217 
Byam Martin Island, 180 
Bylot, Robert, 233 

Cabot, Sebastian, 4, 5 
Cagni, Umberto, 77, 284 
Cambridge Bay, 177 
Camden Bay, 177 
Carcass, H.M.S., 29 
Carlsen, Elling, 44, 58 

„ Olaf, 65 
Castor, The (boat), 166 
Castor and Pollux River, 169, 208 
Cathay Company, The, 218 
Catherine, The Empress, 130 
Cator, Lieutenant, 183 
Cavendish thermometer, The, 30 
Chamisso Island, 138 
Chancellor, Richard, 5 
Char, 44, 258 
Charing Cross, 220 
Charles's Foreland, Prince, 14 
Chelagskoi, Cape, 108 
Chelyuskin, Cape, 84 
Cherie Island, 12 
Chippewyan, Fort, 147, 152, 166 
Christian Land, King, 185 
Chukches, The, 89, 115, 127 
Chvoinof, 106 
Clavering Island, 268 
Gierke, Charles, 136 
Clio borealis, 268 



Coal, 45, 249, 258 

Collinsou, Richard, 171, 175 

Columbia, Cape, 257 

Columbus visits Iceland, 3 

Colwell, J. C, 279 

Commander Islands, The, 135 

Conferences, The Polar, 273 

Confidence, Fort, 167 

Conger, Fort, 273 

Constitution, Cape, 236 

Conway, William Martin, 47 

Cook, James, 90, 136 

Cookery-of-Haarlem, 25 

Coppermine River, 147, 153, 159, 167 

Cornwall, North, 185 

Cornwallis Island, 180, 206 

Coronation Gulf, 155 

Countess of Warwick Island, 219, 

222 
Crow's Nest, The, 30 
Crozier, F. R. M., 205, 212 
Cumberland Gulf, 227 

Dall, W. H., 142 

Danes Island, 104 

Danish Sound, 185 

Davis, John, 9, 223 

Davis Strait, 227 

Dealy Island, 174, 180 

Dease, Peter Warren, 158, 165 

Dease River, 158, 159 

„ Strait, 168 
Dee, Dr. John, 223 
De Haven, Lieutenant, 183 
„ Long, G. W.,116 
Deschnef, 85 
Des Voeux, C. F., 212 
Devon, North, 180 
Diana, The, 44 
Dickson Harbour, 85, 273 
Discovery, H.M.S. (Cook), 136 
„ * „ (Nares), 248 
„ The (Hudson), 233 
Discovery Harbour, 250 
Distillation apparatus. The, 30 
Dolphin, The (boat), 157, 158 
Dolphin and Union Strait, 159 
Dorothea, H.M.S., 33 
Dove Bay, 268 

Drummond, Thomas, 157, 160 
Dudley, Ambrose, 216 
Dudley Digges Cape, 234 
Durfourth, Captain, 5 
Dyer, Cape, 227 

East Cape, 132 



INDEX 



289 



Ebierbing and Tookoolito, 244 

Edam, Land of, 268 

Edge, Thomas, 15 

Edge's Island, 15 

Edward Bonaventure, The, 5 

Egede, Hans, 259 
„ Paul, 260 

Eira, The, 72 

Elizabeth, The, 232 

Ellen, The, 231 

Ellesmere Land, 235, 281 

Ellis, John, 225 

Elmwood, 103 

Elson, Thomas, 137, 159 

Elson Bay, 137 

Endeavour, The (boat), 41 

English Chief, 147 

Entada bean, The, 44 

Enterprise, Fort, 150 

Enterprise, H.M.S., 171, 175 
„ The (boat), 41 

Erebus, H.M.S., 171, 183, 205 

Eric, The, 283 

Eric the Red, 2, 261 

Ermine, 188 

Eskimo relics, 277 

Eskimos first met with, 217 

Eskimos, Migration of the, 3 

„ 3, 139, 140, 145, 152, 154, 
157, 158, 159, 167, 168, 176, 192, 
198, 200, 207, 211, 217, 222, 225, 
229, 237, 244, 246, 258, 260, 277, 
282, 283 

Etah, 283 

Evensen, Captain, 83 

Exeter Sound, 227 

Express, The, 87 

Falcon, The, 281 

Farewell, Cape, 271 

Fedotof, 129 

Felix Harbour, 197 

Felix, The, 182 

Fern, The first Spitsbergen, 43 

Finlay Island, 185 

Finlayson Islands, 177 

Fish River, The Great, 160, 169 

Fishes, 153, 176, 258 

FitzJames, James, 212 

Fligely, Cape, 70, 76 

Floeberg Beach, 250 

Flora, Cape, 72, 75, 103 

Forsyth, C. C, 183 

Fossils, 43, 107, 126, 173, 266 

Foulke Harbour, 239 

Fox, Arctic, 23, 53 



Fox, Black, 144 

„ Silver-grey, 144 
Fox, The, 208 * 
Fram, The, 91, 185 
Franklin, Fort, 158 
Franklin, John, 33, 149, 156, 195, 
205 

„ Lady, 209, 235 
Franklin Record, The, 212 

„ Strait, 206 
Franz Josef Fiord, 269 

„ „ Land, 62, 64 
Fraser, The, 87 
Frazer, Cape, 236 
Frederick Jackson Island, 99 
Frederiksdal, 271 
Frobisher Bay, 216 
Frobisher, Martin, 215 
Frozen Strait, 190 
Fur-seal, The, 135 
Fury Beach, 193, 202 

„ and Hecla Strait, 193 
Fury, H.M.S., 191 

Gabriel, The (Bering), 132 
„ „ (Frobisher), 216, 218 

Gabriel Islands, The, 221 

Gardiner, Charles, 59 

Garry, Fort, 165 

George, The, 8 

Germania, The, 267 

Gibraltar Bay, Battle of, 58 

Giffard, G. A., 255 

Gilbert, Adrian, 223, 229 
„ Humphrey, 215, 221 

Gilbert Sound, 225 

Gjoa, The, 214 

Gjoahaven, 214 

Glaciers, 16, 46, 68, 189, 242, 237, 
244, 264 

Glow-worm, The, 59 

Godfrey, William, 236 

Godthaab, 91, 225, 273 

Godthaab Fiord, 260 

Gore, Graham, 206, 212 

Graah, W. A., 266 

Graham Island, 185 

Greely, A. W., 272 

Greenland, 2, 14, 259 

Greenland Archipelago, The, 282 

Greenland, East, 12 

Greyhound, The, 10 

Griffith Island, 180 

Grinnell Land, 236, 277, 281 

Griper, H.M.S., 179,202, 267 

Gulf Stream, The, 13, 26, 44 



290 



INDEX 



Gundersen, Captain, 59 
Gunnbiorn discovers Greenland, 2 

Hakluyt Headland, 14 

Hall Basin, 245 

Hall, C. F., 213, 222, 244 

,, Christopher, 216 

„ James, 233 
Hall Island, 68 
Hall's Rest, 246 
Hamilton, Cape, 174 
Hans Hendrik, 237, 245, 249 
Hansa, The, 267 

Hare, 172, 176, 181, 186, 188, 283 
Hare Fiord, 186 
Hartstene Bay, 241 
Hayes, I. I., 237 
Hazen, Lake, 277 
Hazen Land, 281 
Hearne, Samuel, 147 
Hecla, Cape, 282 
Hecla, H.M.S., 40, 179, 191 
Hedenstrom, 107 
Heemskerck, Jacob van, 10, 49 
Heer, Oswald, 266 
Hegemann, Captain, 269 
Heiberg Land, Axel, 185 
Helluland, 3 
Hendon, North, 197 
Hendrik, Hans, 237, 245, 249 
Hendriksen Sound, 185 
Henrietta Island, 107 
Henson, C, 284 
Hepburn, John, 156, 207 
Herald, H.M.S., 138 
Herald Island, 116, 141 
Herschel, Cape, 169, 212 
Himkoff, Alexis, 26 
Hinlopen Strait, 17 
Hobson, W. R., 208, 212 
Hohenlohe Island, 68 
Hood River, The, 155 
Hood, Robert, 149 
Hooper, William Hulme, 140 
Hope, Fort, 204 
Hope, The (Young), 75 

„ „ (Egede), 260 
Howgate, H. W., 274 
Hudson Bay, 62 
Hudson, Henry, 13, 15, 60 
Hudson River, The, 61 

„ Strait, 4, 62, 221, 232 
Hudson's Bay Company, The, 146 

,, Touches, 14 

Humboldt Glacier, The, 237 
Hyaqua shell, The, 145 



Icebergs, 35, 230, 264 

Ice-drill, The, 30 

Ice Haven, 49 

Iceland, 2 

lev Cape, 136, 137 

Igloolik, 193 

Igloos, 198, 211 

Ikmallik, 200 

Independence Bay, 280 

Inglefield, E. A., 235 

Ingolf lands in Iceland, 2 

Insects, 192, 281 

International Polar Stations, The, 

272 
Intrepid, H.M.S., 183 
Investigator, H.M.S., 171 
Irkaipii, 89, 136 
Irving, John, 212, 213 
Isabel, The, 235 
Isabella, Cape, 235 
Isabella, The, 179, 202 
Isachsen, Cape, 186 
Isbjorn, The, 64 

Jackman, Charles, 8, 60 
Jackson, Frederick G., 75, 103 
Jakobshavn, 266, 280 
Jan Mayen, 14, 273 
Japanese, The, 129, 133 
Jason, The, 261 
Jeannette, The, 91, 116, 141 
Jeannette Island, 107 
Jenkinson, Anthony, 7, 215 
Jesup Land, 185 
Joe and Hannah, 244 
Johansen, F. H., 96 
John, The, 196 
Jones Sound, 234 
Joseph Henry, Cape, 284 
Journal, The, introduced, 5 
Judith, The, 219 
Julianehaab, 266 

Kalutunah, 237 
Kamchatka, 129 
Kane, E. K., 236 
Kane Sea, The, 235 
Kara Sea, The, 7 
Karmakul Bay, 273 
Kay, E. C. Lister, 59 
Kellett, Henry, 138, 174, 184 
Kendall, E. N. 156 
Kennedy Channel, 236 
Kennedy, Port, 211 
Kennedy, William, 183, 207 
King, Richard, 160 



INDEX 



291 



Kingua, 278 

King William Land, 163, 214 
Kite, The, 280 
Knight, John, 146 
Kod-lun-arn, 223 
Kola, 9, 12, 57 
Koldewey, Karl, 267 
Kolguiev, 8 
Kolyuchin Bay, 90 
Kompakova, The, 129 
Kotelnoi Island, 106, 117 
Kraechoj, 127 
Krusenstern, The, 196 
Kruzof Island, 134 
Ku Mark Surka, 122 
Kuriles, The, 133 
Kutchins, The, 145 

Labrador, Discovery of, 4 

Labrets, 145 

Ladv Franklin, 183 

Lady Franklin Bay, 250, 272 

Lambert Land, 268 

Lamont, James, 44 

Lancaster Sound, 179, 180, 234 

Lands Lokk, 186 

Laptef, Dmitri, 85 

„ Khariton, 84 
Leif lands in America, 3 
Lemming, 188 
Lena, The, 87 
Lena Delta, The, 106 
Liakhoff, 89, 106 
Liakhoff Island, 89, 126 
Lichens, 156 
Lifeboat Cove, 247 
Linschoten, Van, 10 
Lion, The (boat), 157, 158 
Little Table Island, 41 
Lock, Michael, 61, 216 
Lockwood, James B., 272, 275 
Lockwood Island, 276 
Log, The, introduced, 5 
Long, G. XV. De, 116 

„ Thomas, 141 
Loschkin, S., 62 
Louis Napoleon, Cape, 235 
Ludlow, 62 

Lunar at sea, The first, 17 
Lundstrom, 85 
Lutke, 63 

Lutwidge, Skeffington, 29 
Lyon, George Francis, 191, 202 

Mackenzie, Alexander, 147 
Mackenzie River, Discovery of, 148 



Macintoshes, The first, 157 

M'Clintock, F. L., 184, 208, 248, 268 

M'Clintock, Cape, 99 

M'Clure, Robert Le M., 171, 177 

M'Cormick Bay, 280 

McKay, James, 161 

Magnet, The (boat), 204 

Magnetic North Pole, 214 

Mahlemut labret, The, 145 

Mammals, Fossil, 126 

Mammoth, 107, 115, 126 

Markham, A. H., 247, 249 

Markland, 3 

Marten skins, 144 

Martens, F., 25 

Mary Harmsworth, Cape, 75 

Mary Margaret, The, 15 

Matiuschkin, 108 

Matthew, The, 4 

Matty Island, 201 

Matyushin Shar, 60 

May, William H., 256 

Melville Bay, 234 

Melville, G. W., 117 

Melville Island, 174, 176, 180 

„ Peninsula, 192, 205 
Merchant Adventurers, The, 5 
Mercury, The, 9 
Mercy Bay, 174 
Mermaid, The, 229 
Meta Incognita, 219 
Michael, The, 216 
Middendorf Glacier, The, 68 
Middleton, Christopher, 190 
Mistaken Streight, 221 
Moloi, 106 

Montreal Island, 162, 169, 206, 212 
Moons, Mock, 151 
Moonshine, The, 224, 229 
Moore, Thomas E. L., 138 
Moose-hunting, 144 
Moravians, The, 261 
Morton, William, 236, 245 
Moss, E. L., 254 
Moss Point, 284 
Mossel Bay, 44, 45, 273 
Moxon, Joseph, 285 
Murchison, Cape, 197 
Murchison River, 208 
Muscovy Company, The, 6, 13, 15, 

17, 60, 233 
Musk ox, 126, 172, 181, 188, 248, 

267, 283 

Nai, Cornelis, 9 

Nancy Dawson, The, 139 



292 



INDEX 



Nansen, Fridtjof, 91, 261 

Nares, G. S., 248 

Narwhal, 31, 188, 219 

Nassau, Cape, 9 

Navy Cliff, 280 

Nelson, Horatio, 29 

Neptune, The, 277 

Newfoundland, Discovery of, 4 

Newman Bay, 283 

New Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106 

Nindemann, 118 

Nordenskiold, Adolf Erik, 43, 44, 

85, 263 
Noros, 118 

Norsemen discover America, 2 
Northbrook Island, 100 
North Cape, The, 6, 89, 136 

„ East Land, 26 
North-East Passage, The, 5, 85 
Northern Passage, The, 5 
North Pole, The (boat), 204 
North Pole, Magnetic, 214 
North Star, The, 229 
North Water, The, 234 
North-West Fur Company, The, 147 

„ Passage, The, 5 

Norton Sound, 142 
Nova Kholmogory, 9 
Novaya Zemlya, 7, 9, 49 
Nulato, 142 
Ny Herrnhut, 261 

Obi, The, 85 

Observation, Mount, 172 

Ochotsk, 129 

Ommanney, Erasmus, 183 

Omoki, The, 115 

Ooligbuck the Eskimo, 157, 158, 168 

Oraefa, Mount, 2 

Orleans, Duke of, 268 

Osborn, Sherard, 183 

Ostiaks, The, 115 

Otaria, The, 105 

Pachtussoff, 63 

Pandora, The, 116 

Parhelia, 152 

Parker Bay, 171 

Parr, Alfred A. C, 255 

Parry, William Edward, 40, 178, 179, 

191, 234 
Parry Falls, The, 163 
Patience, The, 233 
Patrick Island, Prince, 174, 184 
Pavy, O., 275 
Payer, Julius, 64 



Peary Channel, 280 

Peary, Robert E., 185, 186, 280 

Peel Sound, 206 

Pellham, Edward, 18 

Pelly Bay, 207 

„ Point, 171 
Pendulum Island, 267 
Penny Strait, 206 
Penny, William, 183 
Pet, Arthur, 7, 60 
Pet Strait, 8 
Peter the Great, 130 
Petermann Fiord, 248 
Petermann, Mount, 269 
Petersen Bay, 214 
Petersen, C, 208 
Petropaulovsk, 134 
Phipps, The Hon. Constantine John, 

29 
Pim, Bedford, 174 
Pioneer, H.M.S., 183 
Plants, 43, 88, 91, 113, 114, 156, 

192, 248, 264, 266, 281 
Plover, H.M.S., 138 
Point Lake, 153 

„ Victory, 206 
Polar Stations, The International, 

272, 273 
Polaris, The, 245 
Polhern, The, 44 
Pollux, The (boat), 166 
Poole, Jonas, 13, 15 
Porcupine River, The, 142 
Pospeloff, 62 

Pribylov Islands, The, 135 
Prince Albert, The, 183, 207 
Prince of Wales, Cape, 136 
Prince of Wales Strait, 172, 176 
Proeven, The, 85 
Pronchistschef, 85 
Proteus, The, 274, 278 
Protococcus nivalis, 192 
Prudhoe Land, 234 
Pullen, W. J. S., 139 

Quennerstedt, A., 43 

Racehorse, H.M.S., 29 
Racer, The, 183 
Rae, Fort, 273 
Rae, John, 170, 204, 207 
Rae Strait, 208, 214 
Raleigh, Mount, 227 
Rat River, The, 142 
Ravenscraig, The, 247 
Rawlings Bay, 241 



INDEX 



293 



Rawson, Wyatt, 257 

Red snow, 192 

Regent Inlet, Prince, 180 

Regina, The, 59 

Reikjavik founded, 2 

Reindeer, 10, 18, 23, 27, 28, 60, 109, 

150, 169, 172, 174, 176, 181, 188, 

267, 283 
Reindeer, White, 61, 283 
Reliance, Fort, 160 
Reliance, The (boat), 158 
Rensselaer Harbour, 235, 236 
Repulse Bay, 191, 204, 207 
Resolute, H.M.S., 175, 183, 184 
Resolution, H.M.S., 136 

„ The (whaler), 31 

Return Reef, 159, 166 
Rhinoceros, 126 

Richardson, John, 149, 156, 170 
Richthofen Peak, 71 
Rijp, Jan Corneliszoon, 11, 57 
Ringnes Islands, The, 185 
Ritenbenk, 249 
Robeson Channel, 245 
Rocky Mountains first crossed, 149 
Rodgers, The, 141 
Roosevelt, The, 282 
Rosmysslof, 62 
Ross, James Clark, 41, 181, 201 

„ John, 179, 182, 194, 234 
Rudolf Island, Prince, 75, 76, 82 
Rudson's Point, 14 
Russell, Cape, 235 
Ryder, Lieut., 266 

Sabine, Edward, 181, 267 
Sabine, Cape, 235 
Sable, The, 135 
Sagastyr Island, 273 
St. Elias, Cape, 134 

„ Mount, 136 
St. Lawrence Bay, 141 

„ Island, 132 

St. Paul, The, 134 
St. Peter, The, 134 
Salmo arcturus, 258 
Salmon trout, 176 
Salutation, The, 18 
Samoyeds, The, 10, 115 
Sanderson's Hope, 232 
Sanderson, William, 224 
Sannikof, 107 
Schley, Winfield S., 278 
Schonau Island, 70 
Schwatka, Frederick, 213 
Scoresby, William, the elder, 30 



Scoresby, William, the younger, 31, 

129, 266 
Seal, The Fur, 135 
Seals, 31, 88 
Sea-otter, The, 135 
Searchthrift , The, 7 
Semonovski Island, 117 
Serdze Kamen, Cape, 90, 132, 136 
Seven Islands, The, 40 
Shackleton, Cape, 233 
Shantar Islands, The, 130 
Sheathing for ships introduced, 5 
Shedden, Robert, 139 
Sheridan, Cape, 283 
Siberia, 84, 106 
Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106 
Silver Bay, 63 
Simmons Peninsula, 188 
Simpson, Sir George, 165 

„ Thomas, 165 
Simpson Strait, 168, 206, 214 
Sinclair, George, 166 
Sirovatskof, 107 
Sitka Sound, 134 

Sledges and sledge-work, 184, 252 
Smeerenberg, 24 
Smith, Benjamin Leigh, 44, 72 
Smith Sound, 234, 235 
Snow, William Parker, 183 
Snow houses, 198, 211 
Sodankyla, 273 
Sofia, The, 44 
Somerset House, 202 
Somerset, North, 180 
Sonntag, August, 242 
Sophia, The, 183 
Spangberg, Martin, 131 
Spinks, Robert, 37, 158 
Spitsbergen, 12, 15, 16, 18, 24, 104 
Steamship, The first Arctic, 194 
Stella Polare, The, 76 
Sterlegof, Cape, 85 
Stoat, 188 
Stolbovoi, 107 
Stuxberg, 85 

Sunshine, The, 224, 229, 232 
Sverdrup, Otto, 104, 185, 261 
Svjatoi Nos, 89 

Tanana, The, 144 

Tananas, The, 145 

Tegetthoff, The, 64 

Teplitz Bay, 69, 77 

Terror, H.M.S., 171, 183, 203, 205 

Thaddeus Island, 107, 117 

Thames, The, 87 



294 



INDEX 



Thermometer, The deep-sea, 30 
Thetis, The, 278 
Thirkill, Launcelot, 4 
Thomasine, The, 16 
Thorne, Robert, 5 
Tiger, 126 
Tigress, The, 247 
Toll, Baron E., 126 
Torell, Otto, 43 
Trent, H.M.S., 33 
Treurenberg Bay, 40 
Tripe-de-roche, 156 
Tschirikof, Alexei, 131 
Tundra, The, 86, 113 
Turnagain, Point, 155, 167 
Tyndall Glacier, 244 

Umivik, 262 

Union, The (boat), 157, 158 
United States, The, 239 
Upernivik, 232 

Valorous, H.M.S., 248 
Veer, Gerrit de, 10, 49 
Vega, The, 87 
Victoria, Cape, 211 
Victoria Land, 168 

„ Sea, Queen, 75 

„ Strait, 206 
Victory, The, 194 
Victory, Point, 212 
Vinland, 3 

Vlamingh, Willem de, 62 
Vrangel', Ferdinand, 108 

Wager River, 190 
Waigatz Island, 7 
Wainwright Inlet, 139 
Walden Island, 40 
Walker Bay, 176 
Walnut Shell, The (boat), 157, 159 
Walrus, 12, 13, 20, 31, 34, 57, 73, 
82, 88, 93, 101 



Walsingham, Francis, 224, 229, 231 
Washington Irving Island, 250 
Welden, Captain, 13 
Wellington Channel, 180 
Wentzel, 150, 151, 154 
West England, 220 
Weyprecht, K., 64, 272 
Whale fishery, The, 15, 17 
Whale, Greenland, 14, 15, 31, 265 
Whale Island, 148 
Whale, White, 88, 148, 188 
Whaling trade begins, 15 
White Man's Island, 223 
White Sea, The, 6 
White Shirt, 2 
Whymper, Edward, 266 

,, Frederick, 142 

Wiggins, Joseph, 87 
Wijde Bay, 17 
Wilberforce Falls, The, 155 
Wilczek Island, 6Q 
William Land, King, 163, 214 
William, The, 8 
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 5 
Windward, The, 76, 103 
Winter Harbour, 174, 181 

„ Island, 192 
Winthont, The, 10 
Wollaston Land, 158 
Wolstenholme, Cape, 234 
Wolverine, 144 
Women Islands, The, 233 
Wrangell, Ferdinand von, 108 
Wrangell Island, 116, 141 

Yakuts, The, 115 
Yalmal, 85 
Yenesei, The, 85 
Ymer, The, 87 

Young, Allen, 75, 116, 208, 213 
Young's Foreland, 14 
Yugor Strait, 8 
Yukon, Fort, 142, 144 
The, 142 



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